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GIDEON OUSELEY was in many respects the most remarkable of Irish Methodist preachers. After his conversion, he devoted himself, body and soul, to the service of God; and in the entire consecration of his nature he enjoyed the higher blessings of the Christian life. His joyousness of feeling frequently found vent in his favourite exclamation, "I am as happy as the day is long!" Burning with desire for the salvation of souls, he laboured for seven or eight years in an irregular, but successful way for the conversion of his fellow-countrymen, before he received, in the year 1799, a Conference appointment in connection with the Irish General Mission. At first, he confined his evangelistic efforts to Dunmore, his native town, and its immediate neighbourhood. He afterwards extended his labours to other parts of the county of Galway; and, eventually, was carried by his ardent zeal into the adjacent counties.

His

manner of working in those days, when Irish Popery was more modest and less audacious than it has been in recent years, would not be permitted by the Maynooth priests of the present time. He went sometimes to the very houses where the Romish clergy were celebrating Mass, and also to wakes and funerals; and by interpreting for the ignorant people the Latin used by the priests, he managed, with considerable adroitness, to make known the truth as it is in Jesus, and to set forth to assembled crowds the one only way of salvation-that of faith in the blood of Christ. On one of these occasions he found a large congregation kneeling outside a house, which would not have held one-tenth of them, and where, in their midst, the parish priest was saying Mass. Kneeling with them, Mr. Ouseley rendered the less objectionable parts of the service into the Irish language, adding, at the end of each sentence, "Now, listen to that!" The people heard with surprise, for the first time, the meaning of the words of the "unknown tongue" to which they had been listening for many years, and were affected to tears, especially as at the close Mr. Ouseley preached to them-not controversially, but effectively-" Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." The priest himself was the most of all amazed

at the novel interruption by the mysterious stranger. "Who is this man, Father?" asked the astonished people. "This man!" replied the priest; "he is not a man at all, he is an angel; no mere man could do as he has done!"

Some considerable time after this, when, one day, Mr. Ouseley was riding on horseback, he met a peasant, whom he thus accosted: "My dear man, would you not like to be reconciled to God, have His peace in your heart, and stand clear before the great Judge when He comes to judge the world?" "Glory be to His holy and blessed name! Sir," instantly replied the countryman; "I have now this peace in my heart; and the Lord be praised that I ever saw your face!" "My face!" rejoined Mr. Ouseley, "where have you seen my face? and what do you know about this peace?" "Don't you remember the day when you were at the berrin [burial], when the priest was saying Mass?" asked the peasant in reply. "I remember it well," said Mr. Ouseley. "Then, Sir," continued the man, 'you told us how to get that peace, and I went, blessed be God! to Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and got it into my heart, and," placing his hand upon his heart, he added, "I have it here!"

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This is the great need of Ireland at the present time: zealous evangelists, who shall go among its inhabitants, in their homes and gatherings, and show them how they obtain peace with God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that "without money and without price." Much has been said lately of "Ireland's wrongs," and of "Ireland's remedies." But her deepest wrong has been that the truth as it is in Jesus has been withheld from her, and that she has been crushed down into degrading vassalage by a corrupt and mercenary priesthood. And her only real and efficient remedy will be found in the Gospel of the Son of God. Conciliatory surrenders to "The Man of Sin" are futile, and will never satisfy his voracious cravings. Satan is too old and too cunning to be coaxed into submission. Let all ascertained grievances of every kind be redressed; but mere political measures, and the adjustment of ecclesiastical grievances, do

"WHO will go and help our brethren in America?" asked Wesley, in the Conference of 1769, at Leeds.

"Here are we,” replied two of the preachers, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, "send us!"

They went forth, "fishers of men," to toil in their holy vocation beyond the mighty Atlantic; the poor preachers in their Assembly, there and then subscribing, out of their scanty means, fifty pounds towards the required passage money, and thus commenced public collections for Methodist Foreign Missions. En route to Bristol, the port of embarcation, one of the two Christian missionaries was honoured with a convert, who, although only then a simple village maiden, will ever be memorable in the history of Methodism. At an outlying place named Monyash, in the romantic region of the High Peak, Derbyshire, Richard Boardman, on his way to Bristol, lodged for the night, and preached to the villagers on the prayer of Jabez (1 Chron. iv. 9, 10). Mary Redfern heard the sermon, and received impressions which resulted in her conversion. Ten years afterwards, Mary Redfern became by marriage Mary Bunting, and to her first-born child she gave, in grateful recollection of the sermon under which she was led to seek the Lord, the name of Jabez. On the carcer, through a long and laborious life, of him who was thus named it is unnecessary now to dwell. The life and labours of Jabez Bunting, D.D., are and ever will be interwoven with the records of Methodism during the first half of the present century. He is only mentioned now because he was the father of William M. Bunting, the subject of the present biographical sketch.

WILLIAM MACLARDIE BUNTING was Dr. Bunting's eldest child, and was born on the 23rd of November, 1805. When tidings of the birth were communicated to the father he fell upon his knees, and prayed that God might make his son a Methodist preacher. This first prayer for his first-born was answered. Young Bunting was educated successively at Woodhouse Grove, and Kingswood schools, and at St. Saviour's Grammar School, Southwark, At Kings

wood he had the distinction of being the first boy who received from the committee "one additional year," as a reward for good conduct and proficiency. At St. Saviour's, he was advised by Dr. Fancourt, the headmaster, to "go in" for an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, which it was almost certain he could carry off. Other counsels prevailed with his father, so that he was not sent to the University. It was while he was a day-pupil at this establishment that he experienced the great decisive change which made him "a new creature in Christ Jesus." The place where he found peace in believing was the most unlikely that can well be thought of It was not in the privacy of his own closet, while wrestling with God in prayer; it was not in a religious meeting, aided by the sympathies and pleadings of holy ministers and friends. It was on London-bridge, the most crowded and noisy thoroughfare in the world, where the passing school-boy, regardless of the animating and exciting scenes about him, poring, not upon his school-exercises, thinking not of the tempting "exhibition" set before him as a scholar, but intently dwelling in thought and feeling upon his sins and his Saviour, first believed and entered into rest. The " ex

ceeding great and precious promise" which the faith of the stripling grasped on the occasion is one of the most encouraging which the lips of the Redeemer uttered: "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

Mr. Bunting began to preach as a local preacher when he was little more than eighteen years of age, and was received by the Conference of 1824 as a probationer for the Methodist ministry. During the course of the year he was "called out" by the President to labour in the Salford Circuit, and very soon became popular as a preacher. For twenty-five years he exercised a highly acceptable and useful ministry; the most intelligent and the most devout duly appreciating his service in the Lord, in London, Manchester, and other towns. In consequence of failing health, (being frail through life at the strongest,) he retired from the full work of the ministry while yet in middle age, and several years before his

venerable father became a Supernumerary. During the extended period afterwards, in which he resided at Highgate-Rise as a Supernumerary minister, the several Methodist congregations of the metropolis had the advantage of his occasional appearance in their pulpits. True, now and then, he ran the risk of neutralising the benefit of his beautiful and profitable discourses by their immoderate length, when (to use the homely remark applied to him by William Jay of Bath) he tried "to pour a bucket of water into a pint pot." Still he had many hearers whose minds were capacious enough to receive all the instruction he could pour into them, and who had patience enough to endure any interference with domestic arrangements, or with personal comfort, which the "long preaching" (never until midnight, like Paul's at Troas) of so beloved and gifted a minister might occasion. Notwithstanding this drawback, in the estimation of some, his ministry was appreciated by his hearers in general, and more especially by those who were themselves most eminent in intelligence and holiness. His preaching was highly instructive and edifying, truly evangelical, and blessedly rich in "the unction of the Holy One."

He was a real Methodist; and, therefore, large-hearted, and above mere sectarianism. His catholicity of feeling led him to join himself at the beginning to the Evangelical Alliance. For some years he was one of the editors of " Evangelical Christendom, "the official organ of the Alliance. At the death of Dr. Bunting, who had been one of its honorary secretaries, Mr. William was appointed to the place left vacant by the decease of his father.

He was on terms of intimate friendship with many ministers of different denominations, both of the Church of England and of the Nonconformists. The late Dr. Sumner, the good Archbishop of Canterbury, evidently knew his man, when he called on Mr. Bunting to pray in a large assembly of ministers, including dignitaries of his own Church, and of the more prominent ministers of other Churches, who waited on him as a deputation. "I suppose he was the first Nonconformist," observes his brother and biographer, "who had prayed audibly in Lambeth Palace since the Restoration."

Mr. Bunting's life was largely that of an invalid, and, consequently, is not so full of incident as it would have been had he been more actively engaged. And yet, in his debility and comparative retirement, he tried, and not in vain, to serve his generation by the

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will of God. In connection with the committees of several religious institutions, le exerted considerable influence for good. He was, moreover, an attentive and a deeply sympathetic visitor of the sick. As a poet of an elevated order, he sang in strains of consolation to the bereaved, and especially to bereaved parents. Naturally strong in the domestic affections, and intensely happy with the excellent Christian lady who survives him as his widow, and with his two daughters-the elder of whom preceded him but a short time since to the better land-his harp was strung frequently to home themes. A felicitous wish, contained in one of his letters, could only be conceived by a poet-saint:- "I have welcomed," writes he, "more babies from heaven to earth, (as they always seem to me to come,) and sung more back from earth into heaven, than, I will venture to say, any rhymester living or dead. The least those whom I have canonized can do will be, when I go to heaven, to form a cherub-choir, and meet me as far towards earth as my sick-chamber, attending me to the gates of their own world. But there is a better promise 'than that-'I will come and receive you unto Myself.'

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Mr. Bunting was not a voluminous writer; but one of his poetical compositions is annually sung on the first Sunday of the year by a larger number of spiritual worshippers than, perhaps, any other hymn in the English language; viz., the well-known covenant hymn in the Wesleyan Collection :

"O God! how often hath Thino ear
To me in willing mercy bow'd!
While worshipping Thine altar near,
Lowly I wept, and strongly vow'd:
But ah! the feebleness of man!

Have I not vow'd and wept in vain ?"

The deeply interesting volume recently issued from the Conference Office, entitled "Memorials of the late Rev. William M. Bunting," places this estimable servant of Christ in a lovely light. His Sermons, Letters, and Poetry, all show that he was an eminently holy man. His death came somewhat unexpectedly, both to himself and to his friends. He felt the solemnity of the sudden summons when it came. But, while loving life, he was submissively obedient; and in immediate prospect of the great change, he gathered up all his powers of heart and mind, and, with clasped hands, said, as his last earthly utterance, "I renounce my sins; I renounce my righteousness; I renounce every thing, save the blood and merit of Christ!" At the close of life he was attended by his wife and daughter, the latter supporting her dying father in her arms, and whispering

in his ear the words which his faith, under widely different surroundings, grasped so many years before on London-bridge—“ Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." It was on the 13th day of November, 1866, that William Maclardie Bunting, sustained by this blessed promise, entered heaven. And his life and death most encouragingly illustrate the power of a devoted father's prayers for his children; and the possibility of serving the Church and of glorifying God in bodily weakness and debility.

The following lines, composed by him, express at once his Christian submission, and

his unfailing trust in God, in extreme suffering:

"Midst much affliction, Lord, I think,-
Thus suffer all mankind their due;
Nor need I'neath the surges sink,
Thy saints have all passed safely through.

"And though my path from out the flood,
But lead into the fiercer flame,
He, who can pity flesh and blood,
The fire shall temper to my frame.

"Nay, out of measure should it gain,
And press beyond my present strength,
Thy grace, increasing with my pain,
Shall surely bring me through at length."

Class-Leaders.

METHODIST CLASS-LEADERS have an important and a responsible charge committed to them. They have the care of souls; and upon their faithfulness depends greatly the state of the Church to which they belong. The whole in this, as in other things, includes the parts; and as the members, so will the Church be. Diligent attention to each member is enjoined in the "rules" given to each leader on admittance into office. The leader is to see each member once a week, and to inquire into his state, spiritually; so that suitable counsel may be given. Neglect of this primary rule of Methodism has lost from it, and alas! from Christ, and from heaven, many that might have been retained and saved. Such neglect cannot but weaken the bond between leader and member, and diminish the desire of Christian fellowship. On the other hand, where the leader's ceaseless concern for the spiritual welfare of each member of his class is practically manifest, there is, usually, a response most pleasing and satisfactory. We have many words of counsel to offer on the mode of conducting class-meetings, so as to promote their efficiency, and on the modes in which members may be best dealt with in their respective states of mind and experience; but, for the present, we content ourselves with these few general words on the vigilance needed by the Church

m class-leaders towards the members of their

respective classes. A zealous, devoted classleader will, usually, lead to zeal and devotion the members of his class; and as the classes, so will be the societies of Methodism. Hence the vital importance of faithful class-leaders.

Local Preachers.

METHODIST LOCAL PREACHERS are numerous and important in the body to which they belong. No other Christian community has such an army of lay-helpers spread over the world. On each Sabbath, as it comes, thousands and tens of thousands go to and fro amidst towns, villages, and hamlets, proclaiming to sinful and perishing men the Word of Life. This they voluntarily do without fee or reward of any kind, save that which surpasses all other remuneration—the luxury of doing good; and before the Throne and the Lamb in heaven there is now a countless multitude who were spiritually awakened and converted by the devoted efforts of Methodist local preachers. Jealousy for the undiminished honour and efficiency of this agency in Methodism induces us to venture upon a word of counsel to them who belong to it, and that is, to watch carefully over their own order, and not to hastily add to it such as do not sustain its credit, either intellectually or spiritually. A weak and inefficient local preacher not only fails inthe service with which he is immediately connected, but also injures the reputation of the whole body of local preachers. Let trial