WESLEYAN HOME MISSION WORK.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1829, 1 November 1884, Page 2

WESLEYAN HOME MISSION WORK.

The Rev' \V, Olliver, of-.Wellington, delivered a lecture in aid of the funds of the above last night, the subject being "Father Taylor, the Boston sailor preacher." The Rev L. M. Isitt occupied the chair and briefly introduced the lecturer and the subject, saying it was commonly remarked that it took "nine tailors to makoa man," but.it would take nine ordinary men to make such a Taylor as the subject of the lecture had proved himself to be.

Mr Olliver, who was welcomed with cheers on rising, plunged at once into his subject, tracing Father Taylor from his boyhood which he spent in Richmond, Virginia, under the charge of foster parents. As an infant he showed a predisposition to oratory of a sermonic kind. Gathering his infantile companions when he lost a pet kitten or'one'of his little chicks, he would go through a form of burial service and have his listeners in tears, One day as he was out gathering chips a sea captain asked him if he would not like to sail away beyond the seas aud view the far away lands and strange countries which he described as only sailors can, Taylor fairly jumped at the chance, and spent the next ten years of his life mostly on the broad ocean. This was where he got that deep insight into the character of his sailor companions which was useful to him in his spiritually dealing with them afterwards, and which he turned

so successfully to their own advantage. Boston in 1811 contained only 30,000 inhabitants, and he with some other sailors strolled up the town one Sunday night, and attracted by a tolling bell, he turned into a chapel and went aloft in the gallery, where he was deeply affected to tears by the earnest words of the preaoher. He afterwards

went to a Wesleyan Church where the building was so crowded that he could

not get into the porch, so he got in at the window. He shipped again in a privateer the " Black Swan" and was

captured by a British Man-of-war, and tiiken will) others to Dartmouth. There the chaplain read not oiily his sermons but his prayers, and Taylor's pompanions, seeing his religious tendencies, asked )ii)n to conduct service

for them, saying a man that prays so well for himself was equally able to pray for other people, They also insisted on his preaching to them, urging that a man who could speak so well to his God on his knees could most assuredly speak well to his fellow men .on Jus feet, He consented and gave them many ai) earnest address, some of which were percullar. In reading through a chapter he would stqp at a verse that struck him, and taking this for his stand-point work up a sermon thereon, He took for his text on one occasion the verse " A poor and wise child is better than an old and foolish king," and stingingly criticised the failings of ]£ing Georgo. After his liberation and landing in his native land again he combined for some time the vending of hardware and and preaching the gospel, sometimes helding forth in a barn, sometimes in the open air, neither time nor plaoe being out of his season. He afterwards started farming, and still continued his preaching, his eloquence and fervor making him already noted. On one occasion he preached so earnestly on behalf of the widow and orphans of a sailor who had recently lost his life that his hearers Mere and then subscribed sufficient to keep the widow for life. He had converted the wife of a

blacksmith in a village where he preached, and she joined the Church, The blacksmith vowed vengeance, and meeting Taylor in a narrow lane stuck him up, find compelled him, notwithstanding his urgency to the contrary, to fight him. " One of us two has got to get licked" said the smith, and sure enough it was so, Sometime!) the preacher was on the top and sometimes the blacksmith, but as Taylor afterwards related it was nothing but the grace of God which carried him through and the sweetest words he ever remembered was when ho heard the blacksmith cry for mercy, Taylor would not let him up liowove:, until he promised to publicly come up to the penitent form, which he did and kept his word. In Boston he built the largest, grandest, eclesiastical sanctuary that had ever been built in Massachusetts, and the ctntro he kept for what he called his "boys," and although the elite of Society flocked to see and hear him he would not allow thorn to occupy the space reserved for his sailor lads. Every church' was thrown open to him to preaoh in aid of funds to pay off his new Church, and Charlea Diokens, who was one''of his auditors in 1843, left a record, of his power and fervent oratory. ■ At one time he was jpraching against gambling, and after having described the gambling- saloons of Boston and the race-course, he'touched •upon music, eloquently describing it as' Hie language of the skies, calculated to refine and elevate mankind, and he, at the same: time payed a just tribute to Jenny Line], who was making a tour through Amerioa at that'time, and, although he did not'know.it was one of his audience, One burly fellow came to the foot of the pulpit and said, " Father Taylor, if a Christion man should attend one of Jenny Lind's performances and die there, would he go to heavan J" Turning upon the questioner, and looking as black as thunder Father Taylor said, " A Christian man will be a Christian man wherever he goes, and go to heaven wherever he dies, but a fool will be a fool even on the steps of a pulpit." He was very affectionate to children, and when remonstrated with for baptising an infant whose parents were sinners, he said if the Evil One himself brought him an infant he would baptise it, and send the devil back to where he belonged, His rostrum was open to all creeds, and on one ocoasion a brother preacher excused himself for declining the invitation to take a seat there on the_ ground, that Mr So-and-So, a Unitarian Minister was on that, platform the last Sabbath. Father Taylor > dropped down ori'his knees and prayed. ' aloud, " Oh, Lord, there are two things i that curse Boston, one is bad rum, and-1 the other religious bigotry. I don't < know, Lord, whiph is the worst, but (

Thou (lost, and oil, Lord,; remove theui I" The lecturer gave' many other, instances of his quaint sayings, but saidj people must not imagine there was any want of reverence in the man or anything that was not not harmonious with the feelings of Christians, Tho continuous tide of translations from spiritual darkness to light amongst his hearers was proof against this. Father Taylor's peaceful departure to a purer atmosphere was beautifully portrayed by the lecturer, and. brought the subject to a close. A vote of thanks by acclamation was accorded the lecturer, and an earnest appeal was made by the, Chairman on behalf of the Home Mission Fund. The amount of good already done through this means was described, Although the meeting was not numerically strong the right feeling was displayed at the collection.