MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. JOHN ADAM,

MISSIONARY TO INDIA.

[N. B. This valuable article, we regret to state, could not appear this month in the memoir department; but we considered it best to place it in the same number with Mr. Adam's portrait.]

Our late beloved and greatly-lamented friend was the second of the four sons of Mr. Benjamin Adam, of Crutched Friars and Homerton, and grandson of the Rev. William Adam, who was many years an assiduous minister of Christ at Soham, in Cambridgeshire. The family is of ancient and honourable Scottish ancestry, the Adams of Culross.

Mr. John Adam was born in London, May 20th, 1803. From his earliest days he was blessed with the advantages of Christian piety, discipline, and example at home, and the interesting ministry and faithful pastoral care of the Rev. John Clayton, Sen.

When

at school in the country, he was distinguished by his calm and amiable temper, his docility, diligence, and moral propriety. The same was his character at home; and in all situations and circumstances, as he advanced from childhood to youth. In his seventeenth year he left school, having made respectable literary attainments, and received gratifying testimonies of approbation and love from those who had conducted his education. His mind being disinclined to any of the walks of commerce, he was indulged, by the liberality of his pious father, with every opportunity and means that he could desire for pursuing the course of retired study and self-improvement. In that course he was diligent and unremitting. He attended with constancy and evident thoughtfulness upon all the visible means of religion; but, with his characteristic reserve, the result of habitual thoughtfulness, he did not disclose his views and feelings upon the most important of all subjects, till they had acquired a considerable degree of maturity and strength. This progress of his mind was greatly aided by one of the most important and beneficial events of his life. The Rev. Cæsar Malan had been ejected, on account of his evangelical faithfulness and intrepid zeal (as is probably well known to the larger part of our readers), from the office of a minister or licentiate in the established church of Geneva, and from his situation as one of the regents or masters in the public grammarschool of that city, which, with the academy, (an institution fully entitled to take the rank of a university), was founded, in 1559, in a great measure by the exertions of the immortal Calvin. M. Malan opened a private

seminary for liberal and pious education; and our young friend's father embraced the opportunity of conferring so important an amount of benefits on his son, by sending him to be one of the early pupils of that persecuted servant of Christ. There the fine elements of his character were called more prominently forth, and were consolidated into firm and manly habits. His diligence, prudence, punctuality, order, and perseverance, made him an example and a blessing to his companions. There, too, the long cherished principles of true religion displayed their firm hold upon his mind; and, after that mature consideration which was so striking a part of his character, he made his open and solemn profession of personal piety. He joined the congregational church at Bourg du Four, in Geneva, under the joint pastorship of M. Guers and M. Empeytaz. Here also it was that Mr. Adam arrived at a settled determination, if it should appear to be the approving will of God, to devote himself to the ministry of the gospel; he applied with great diligence to theological studies; and he made his first essays in public speaking, by homilies or exhortations, in the French language.

Having spent two years under the tuition, and enjoying the confidential friendship of M. Malan, the interesting subject of this narrative returned to England in the summer of 1823. He now occupied himself for three months in the delightful retreat of his parental home, cultivating his mind and improving in divine knowledge, till his kind and liberal father sent him to the University of Glasgow; from which, however, he soon removed to that of St. Andrews, attracted by the lectures in moral philosophy, and by the personal friendship of Dr. Chalmers. His conscientious industrry would not allow him to enjoy such advantages without deriving a full measure of benefit from them. There he enjoyed the friendship of several pious and highly talented students, among whom was the lamented John Urquhart, the interesting memorial of whose extraordinary character for abilities, attainments, and piety, was raised by the late equally lamented servant of Christ, the Rev. William Orme. Between him and John Adam a most affectionate intimacy subsisted, founded on a congeniality of taste, experience, present occupations, and future prospects. Their minds both arrived, at a determination, with submission to all accessible indications of the divine approbation, to consecrate their lives to the labour of Christian missions among the heathen. Well may we adore, with submissive humiliation, the unsearchableness of the divine counsels, which in the

At the close of the session of 1826, Mr. John Adam returned to the welcoming home, where parents, brothers, and sisters, vied in the feelings and the actions of every kind affection towards him. Now his deliberately formed resolution to live and die a Christian missionary was solemnly declared. This became of necessity the subject of anxious and difficult consideration. A sacrifice was required from so numerous and affectionate a family, the greatness of which no worldly mind can know; but the requirement was examined in the spirit of evangelical piety, the benevolence to men, which is disentangled from carnal interests, because it springs out of love to Christ. Neither the refusal of blind tenderness, nor the hasty assent of an ambitious and evaporating enthusiasm was in the character of this Christian household. Calm judgment, as well as hearts overflowing with natural and sanctified affection, gave a devout, circumspect, and protracted consideration to the question; and the result was that which, from such principles and motives, might have been justly expected. Great was the effort to overcome the yearnings of nature; but sanctified wisdom presided, and the self-denying word was spoken; nor will it to eternity become a subject of regret.

The decision once declared, there was no fear of vacillation. Our young friend applied himself, with a mind more free, and with renewed vigour, to his sacred and other appropriate studies, among which was that of the Sanscrit language. This he rightly considered to be of great importance as the etymological basis of the living dialects of Hindoostan. As his father's residence is in the immediate neighbourhood of the Protestant Dissenting College at Homerton, he was welcomed, without entering as a student, to an attendance, as constant as other engagements allowed, upon the lectures of that academy, in exegetical, doctrinal, and practical divinity, church history, and pastoral ethics. During this period of his life he did honour to the high place which he had already obtained in the love and esteem of the tutors and the students, with whom he was now brought into closer intimacy. His extending circle of friends felt similar affections towards him. His solid judgment, united with a charming simplicity and unaffected piety in all his conversation and habits, rendered his occasional society greatly prized; yet he firmly resisted pleasing engagements,

when they were likely to be hindrances to study or retirement. Occasionally he delivered well-composed and impressive discourses, not only as college exercises, but also publicly in village chapels, and in some more conspicuous places of worship; and always with the approbation and spiritual benefit of the most serious hearers.

This course he continued till the latter part of 1827, when he relinquished, by a letter of handsome acknowledgment, his attendance on the college lectures, in order that he might employ his time more entirely in the study of the Sanscrit and other pursuits immediately connected with his missionary object. Towards the close of the period he offered his services to the London Missionary Society. We need not say how gladly they were accepted. His life having been spent in studious and religious culti vation, and the demand for a reinforcement of well-qualified missionaries being most urgently made from almost every station, but especially from those in the populous regions of the east, the directors were desirous of introducing him, with the least practicable delay, into one of their most important scenes of labour, "to make known among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ." Having resigned himself to their discretion, he was willing to obey their appointment, which was to Calcutta.

On March 26, 1828, was his solemn ordination to the work of an evangelist and missionary to the heathen. The service took place at the Old Gravel-Pit Meeting in Hackney. It was introduced by Mr. Arundel's reading appropriate portions of Scripture, and prayer. Mr. Townley delivered the introductory discourse, which presented, from the stores of his personal knowledge and experience, a selection of the most important information concerning the people of Bengal, the peculiar circumstances of the Calcutta station, the nature of the evangelical labours that would be demanded, the difficulties, obstructions, sorrows, temptations, which were to be expected; and the heavenly encouragements which the grace of Christ afforded under every trial. To the questions proposed by Mr. Orme, our beloved candidate delivered answers signally pertinent, simple, and pathetic. The ordination prayer was offered up by Mr. Collison. The charge was, by his pastor and theological tutor, from Acts xxii. 21: "And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." Mr. H. F. Burder (now Dr. Burder), uttered the concluding prayer.

On April 15th, he took the last farewell of his parents and four sisters, amidst flowing tears of natural grief and sacred joy, and with hearts devoutly raised to God in all prayer, supplication, and reciprocal intercession. His mother gave him this passage as

her parting token of love! Isaiah lxvi. 13, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." His brothers accompanied him to Gravesend, but on the following day they also had their final parting; and he stood on the poop of the Boyne, watching their boat with his affectionate eye till it could be descried no more, and then, beyond a doubt, his soul rose to his God and Saviour in fervid prayer on their behalf.

His voyage to India was peaceful, merciful, and on the whole as pleasant as a long voyage can ordinarily be. Among the passengers was the Rev. John Smith, a fellow missionary, going to his station at Madras, with his excellent wife, who died in the midst of her pious and useful labours, not two months after the subject of this narrative. (See the Missionary Chronicle for January last, p. 33.) They had also some other pious persons on board; and the other passengers, with the captain and officers, were respectable, orderly, and agreeable. The two missionaries were allowed, as regularly as the captain's opinion of naval necessities would permit, to read prayers and to preach on the Sundays; and they embraced the frequentlyoccurring opportunities of private conversation, for the religious instruction and the highest welfare of the different classes on board. Among these was one which, though trying to their feelings, could not but be a beneficial exercise of their knowledge and trial of their judgment: the being called repeatedly to sustain the Christian argument, in conversation with polite and gentlemanly sceptics.

They landed in India first at Madras, where Mr. Adam's preaching and conversation made a very grateful impression of his amiable disposition and Christian excellence ; and there he left his faithful friends, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

He re-embarked on board the Boyne, and arrived at Calcutta on Wednesday, September 3d, 1828.

He met with the most friendly reception from Mr. Hill, Mr. Gogerley, Mr. Ray, and their associates in faith and labour. Much respect and encouraging kindness was shown to him, in a variety of ways, by the members of the Baptist Mission, by Archdeacon Corrie, and by many other friends of the gospel and the immortal welfare of mankind.

Of the manner in which Mr. Adam fulfilled his mission during the short period of two years and nearly eight months, which the wise and holy sovereign permitted to be the term of his labours, we are favoured to possess a testimony borne by a competent judge and eye-witness, his friend, and faithful senior in the Calcutta Mission, the Rev. JAMES HILL. We make the following extracts from his "SERMON, Occasioned by the Death of the Rev. JOHN ADAM, preached in

Union Chapel, CALCUTTA, on May 1, 1831;" published at that city.

"The removal of such men is a public loss; a loss both to the church and to the world; a loss which nothing earthly can repair-not splendid talents; not high literary attainments; not the wisdom of the wise, nor the power of the mighty. Such men are thechariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof;' and when they fall it is as though a standard-bearer fainted.'

"But one of this noble army was our departed friend; a Christian of no common growth, no mean stature, no dwarfish standard of excellence. By persons who judge of character by rank or station in society, or by the adventitious ornaments of exterior embellishments, he would probably have been overlooked. He had nothing sparkling, nothing meretricious, about him: but if piety the most ardent, sincere, and unostentatious; if zeal the most fervent, enlightened, and benevolent; if the deepest and most unaffected humility; if unshrinking, uncompromising integrity;—in a word, if meekness, gentleness, charity, faith, love, purity, would place any man in the rank of high moral excellence, that station belonged to him. These remarks are not made at random, or from a slight and superficial knowledge of his character; but from the closest intimacy formed from daily intercourse; and I can say, my conscience bearing me witness before God, that, in private and in public, in solitude and in society, in the devotions of the closet, the labours of the study, or the active exertions of a Christian missionary, I have never seen so perfect an exhibition of Christian excellence as in him. It was next to impossible to come into his company without feeling the force and energy of his Chris tian principles; these pervaded his whole character, and gave it a beauty, simplicity, grace, and dignity, which words do but feebly

express.

Of his active exertions, combined with the most intense application to mental and moral improvement, we may form some estimate, from the following brief statement which he gave of his labours to the committee of the Bengal Missionary Society.

"Imperfectly acquainted with the language, and anxious, as much as possible, to combine my own improvement with the instruction of others, the attempts to present the gospel to the adult population, at this station and its vicinity, have been modified accordingly. At an early stage of a missionary's career, it is much easier to hold a conversation in a familiar manner, than to deliver a sustained address to a floating, not unfrequently hostile, and always suspicious, auditory; my habit, therefore, has been to go out in different directions every morning, from eight till ten or eleven o'clock; enter into friendly conversation, invite discussion,

read and distribute tracts, examine schools, &c. Two or three times a week, I frequent markets, very numerous in this neighbourhood (which present the most inviting field of labour). These excursions are of the most interesting character, and present daily encouragement to persevere, so long as practicable, in the plan I have adopted. The afternoon has been devoted to the examination of schools by the road-side, in the catechism or gospels, by which means numbers of persons become acquainted with the elements of the Christian doctrine.'

"Of his piety I will repeat the following instance:-A day being set apart, some short time since, for humiliation and prayer by the whole congregation, he led part of the public devotional services of the morning; and so apt were his scriptural allusions, so holy his aspirations, so ardent his intercessions, such a glow of fervid piety to God, and benevolence to man, seemed to breathe through his prayer, as must deeply have impressed all who heard him. After the service, I asked him if he could give me an outline of the prayer he had offered up. He said he could not; nor was he aware that there was any thing remarkable about it; but if, said he, I felt more happy than usual, perhaps it is owing to this that I rose soon after three o'clock this morning, and spent the time before I came here in communion with God.

"Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous features in his character were humility, modesty, and meekness; with the former, he might be said to be clothed as with a robe, whilst he wore, as an ornament, a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. His humility, however, had nothing mean, nothing servile, nothing timeserving about it.

The mode in which it operated,' to use the words of an eloquent writer,' was at the utmost remove from the shallow expedients adopted by those who vainly attempt to secure the praise of that quality without possessing it. It neither prompted him to depreciate his talents, nor to disclaim his virtues; to speak in debasing terms of himself, nor to exaggerate his imperfections and failings. It taught him the rarer art of forgetting himself."

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Finally, men even of piety and talent are not of equal value and importance in all places.

"If an army were composed chiefly of veterans, the loss even of a leader would not be irreparable. In a country abounding with men of ability, the death of a person of acknowledged worth is not so severely felt; others step into his situation qualified to discharge his duties. Had our lamented friend been a minister of the gospel in his native land, his death, though any where a public loss, would not have been of the magnitude which it is here. In this country, he formed

one of a very small band, whose object is to evangelize this vast continent of heathen darkness; a band so small, when compared with the overwhelming multitudes which require their aid, that, uniting all the ministers and missionaries of the gospel of every persuasion in India, there would not be one for each million of souls. To the duties of a missionary in such a country he had consecrated his life; and for this office, by natural endowments, and acquired attainments, he was singularly qualified."-p. 18-23.

"From such sources, aided by a mind of no common capacity, and impelled to incessant labour by an ardent thirst for knowledge, and a deep concern for the glory of God, he made very respectable proficiency in several departments of learning, more especially in an acquaintance with the original languages of Scripture. Biblical studies were his great delight, and the knowledge which he had of the Bible, considering his age, was very remarkable; he was acquainted, not merely with its general contents, but with every thing which appertains to the science of biblical criticism;-chronology, geography, history-natural, civil, and ecclesiastic-the original languages of the Scriptures, the manners and customs of oriental nations, the sources of evidence for the genuineness and authenticity of particular books, and of the whole volume. With a mind thus furnished with knowledge, and a heart still more richly fraught with the fruits of the Spirit, he gave himself to the life of a missionary. In September, 1828, he arrived in this country, and applied himself with the greatest diligence to the acquisition of the Bengalee language, in which, for the period he was engaged in it, he made uncommon proficiency. As a public speaker, either in his own or any other tongue, it is probable he never would have attained a very high degree of excellence; some slight defect in the conformation of the organs of speech rendered his articulation indistinct; but he had so many other excellent properties of a good missionary, that this defect was not only more than counterbalanced, but to those who knew him almost lost. Of his active labours amongst the heathen some account has already been given; much more might be said; for, at home and abroad, in his study and by the way-side, in the crowded bazaar, the thronged street, or the lone and retired village, every where, and at all times, he was the good

servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.' In all things approving himself as the minister of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in ne cessities, in distresses, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report

and good report: as a deceiver and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.' When such a man is removed from such a sphere of labour, it is an event which claims our tears; it is homage due to departed worth, and sorrow meet for all who are grieved for the affliction of Joseph.'-p. 24-26.

"He lives to die no more. He has come out of great tribulation, has washed his robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Death, the last enemy is with him destroyed; he shall feel no more pain, nor sorrow, for the former things are passed away. And where is the Christian father, where the mother in Israel, who, when the paroxysms of grief are passed, would not be happy to have a child die as he died ?-With his face to the foe, with his armour girt about him, with his weapons bright and burnished for warfare, in his work and at his post, so that, on his grave may be written as of one of old, • Here lies my faithful martyr, Antipas.'-p. 26, 27.

"Painful as this event will be to the parents of this excellent young man, yet how much that pain will be mitigated by the reflection that his whole life was spent in the service of God his Saviour; and his journey through this world, as the path of the just, shone brighter and brighter unto noon-day! In the splendour of the heavenly vision he now stands; and there they anticipate a reunion in joy and peace which will never end. Oh, parents! would you have happiness in your children here, or consolation in the prospect of leaving them behind you; would you, whilst they live, make them holy, happy, and useful, or give them a hope of a brighter scene to open beyond the grave; would you bring down the cheerful light of heaven to irradiate the otherwise palpable darkness of their sepulchres, or to raise your own spirits to the abodes of tranquillity and joy, bring them up in the fear of the Lord; train them in the way they should go; teach them, by your example and your admonitions, to say to the Almighty, My Father, my father, thou shalt be the guide of my youth.' In this manner was he brought up; and what a lenitive will it be to the bleeding hearts of his parents to reflect, that God had the dew of his youth;' that his life, though short, was holy, honourable, and useful; an odour of a sweet smell; a libation poured on the altar of his Saviour; what a contrast will their feelings form to the feelings of those parents whose negligence or example has ruined their offspring, and whose keenest pang of sorrow, in another world, will be that reflected from the look of their children, who will have to accuse them of being the authors of their existence and their perdition too!"—p. 29.

Mr. Adam having inadvertently, in the pursuit of his labours, exposed himself too much to the rays of the sun, became ill; inflammation of the brain ensued, and he died on the 21st of April, 1831. Our readers will do well to refer to the circumstantial account of this event, in our last volume, page 502; supplied by another devoted missionary, the Rev. George Christie, who has since fallen into ill health, and has been ordered to Europe as a last resource. The afflictive intelligence reached England in the following October; on the sixteenth or twentieth of which month his mourning pastor endeavoured to improve the voice of heaven in the event, by two sermons, the first from 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14; and the other from Phil. ii. 16-18.

REV. RICHARD DAVIS.

Died, on Sabbath-day, June 17, the Rev. Richard Davis, late pastor of the Baptist Church in East Street, Walworth, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. His disease was consumption, which made its first manifest approaches at the commencement of the year, and thus took good part of six months for the accomplishment of its slow but sure work. His frame of mind during his whole illness was eminently spiritual, and at the latter end most peaceful. The last words which could be distinctly! made out were, "Lord, have mercy on me now!"

Further particulars would here be furnished, but it is in the contemplation of the bereaved family, for their own solace, and for the gratification of a widely-extended circle of friends, to prepare a brief memoir of the deceased. Should it be found practicable, which as yet is matter of doubt, a few of his sermons, or outlines of them, will be appended. His epistolary correspondence was not large. It is thought, however, that some of his friends are in possession of documents which would greatly add to the interest of the little memorial. If those who hold materials of this kind would allow the use of them to the family for the above purpose, they would feel deeply obliged. The MSS. should be carefully preserved, and duly returned. Communications may be addressed to Rev. John Davis, East Street, Walworth, Surrey.

REV. RICHARD FLETCHER.

ON Wednesday, June 27th, 1832, died, after about two days' illness, which he bore with Christian meekness and resignation, the Rev. Richard Fletcher, of Bicester, Oxon, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his public ministry. Further particulars in our next.