Christian Leaders of the Last Century — J. C. Ryle
An intelligent Christian needs not to be reminded that the Church of Christ has always recognized two classes of prophetic writers in the Old Testament.
There are four who are called “the greater prophets”, and twelve who are called “the lesser prophets.” All wrote by direct and equal inspiration of God; “all spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit;” and yet we do not hesitate to assign a higher importance to one class than to the other.
A well-informed man knows well, that in the solar system some planets exceed others in size and glory. All are bright, and beautiful, and perfect. All proclaim to the student of the heavens that the Hand which made them was divine. Yet the glory of such bodies as Jupiter and Saturn is far greater than that of Mars, or Venus, or the Moon.
Thoughts such as these come across my mind as I turn from the seven leading champions of the revival of English religion in the last century to some of their lesser contemporaries. There were not a few eminent ministers in our country who were entirely of one mind with Whitefield and his fellow-workers, and yet never attained to their greatness. They sympathized with the great leaders in all matters of doctrine. They co-operated with them in the main, and rejoiced in their success. They cheerfully bore their share of the reproach cast on “Methodism” or evangelical religion. They shrank from no sacrifices, and spared no pains in setting forward Christ’s gospel. But they did not possess the extraordinary public gifts of their seven brethren, and did not therefore leave so deep a mark on their generation. Like Silas and Timothy in Paul’s days, they did good work in their own positions; but not work that attracted so much public attention as that of the mighty “masters of assemblies” whom I have described in preceding Chapters.
But we must beware that we do not undervalue men merely because they do not occupy prominent positions in the Church of Christ. Various and manifold are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and he divides them to every man severally as he thinks fit. One minister is cabled to preach to thousands, and shake the world like a “son of thunder;” while another is called to write hymns or compose books in an obscure corner of the earth. One man has gifts of voice, and delivery, and action, and fluency, and memory, and invention, which fit him to stand up before multitudes—like Paul on Mars’ Hill, or Luther at Worms, or Whitefield in Moorfields—and to carry all before him. Another is shy, and gentle, and retiring, and can only make his mind work in solitude, quiet, and silence. Yet each may be an instrument of mighty influence in God’s hand. The last day, indeed, may prove that the work of him whose voice was never “heard in the street,” and who dwelt among his own people, produced more permanent effect on souls than the most brilliant open-air sermons. I fear that we are all apt to exaggerate the value of public gifts, and to depreciate gifts which make no show before the world. Yet a time may come when the last shall be found first, and the first last.
Remembering these things, I with to give some account of four men of the last century who are far less known than some of their contemporaries, and yet were eminently useful in their day and generation. The first whom I will introduce to my readers is Samuel Walker, the curate of Truro, in Cornwall.
Walker was born at Exeter in 1714, and died in 1761, at the early age of forty-seven. Partly from the circumstance that his ministerial life was entirely spent in one of the most remote corners of England, before railways were invented, and partly from his habits of mind, which made him entirely decline all public work of an aggressive and extra-parochial kind, he is a man whose name is scarcely known to many Christians. Yet he was one who, in his day, was most highly esteemed by such men as Wesley, Whitefield, Romaine, and Venn, for his eminent spirituality and soundness of judgment. Above all, he was one who cultivated his own corner of the Lord’s vineyard with such singular success, that there were few places in England where such striking results could be shown from preaching the gospel as at Truro.
The facts of Walker’s life of which any record remains are few, and soon told. His family resided at Exeter, and was well connected. He was lineally descended from the good Bishop Hall, who was for a time Bishop of Exeter, and whose grand-daughter married a Walker. His grandfather, Sir Thomas Walker, was member of Parliament for Exeter. John Walker, Rector of St. Mary in Exeter, who wrote a well-known volume about the “Sufferings of the Ejected Clergy” under the Commonwealth, was also a relative of the subject of this Chapter; in fact, the first edition of the work was published in the very year that Samuel Walker was born.
We know little of Walker’s boyhood and youth, beyond the fact that he was educated at Exeter Grammar School, and was there for ten years—from the age of eight until he was eighteen. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1732, and in due course of time took his degree of B.A. in that university. He seems to have made good use of his time while he was at college, and to have acquired much knowledge, which he found valuable in after-life.