THE METHODIST MAGAZINE, FOR JUNE, 1819. BIOGRAPHY. A BRIEF MEMOIR OF MR. EDWARD WILSON, Late of Grainthorpe, near Louth, Lincolnshire. To the Editor of the Methodist Magazine. Dear Sir, To record the memory of worthy and useful Christians, though in humble life, is, I apprehend, an important object of the Methodist Magazine, and highly calculated to edify the great majority of your readers, as well as to convince the world that the benign influence of religion produces the same salutary effects in all its possessors, whether high or low, learned or illiterate. With these views I am inclined to think, that my late deservedly revered and much lamented father, Edward Wilson, (who as a man possessed the true spirit of piety, and as a Christian adorned his profession as a member and a local preacher in the Methodist society, by an uniform deportment upwars of 42 years) is deserving a place amongst the worthies of our Zion, whose holy lives and happy deaths have generally been read with delight and profit. Should you be of the opinion that this plain and unadorned account is of the same class, your early insertion of it, will oblige, Dear Sir, Rotherham. Your's, most respectfully and affectionately, EDWARD WILSON, the subject of the following memoir, was born in the parish of South-Summercoates, near Louth, Lincolnshire, August 1st, 1742. His parents were professed members of the Church of England, and brought him up in a regular attendance on its ordinances. The providence of God deprived him of his mother when he was about six years of age. This loss he greatly lamented, as he was thereby bereaved of maternal care to watch over his infant mind. His father was by trade a butcher; and, by industry and frugality in that calling, was enabled to bring up a large family, and to give his children an acquaintance at least with the first rudiments of learning; VOL. XLII. JUNE, 1819. * 2 Z⭑* which was of great advantage to my father, in enabling him to read the Holy Scriptures for his own information: a habit which he acquired from his earliest days, and in which he continued with increasing delight and profit, to the end of his life. It appears from some of his memorandums that his father, although an industrious and moral man, like too many parents, neglected to instruct his children in the first principles of Christianity; as I well remember having often heard him say, (when catechizing his own children) he could not recollect ever having heard his father tell him that he had a soul either to be saved or lost; or that there are any rewards and punishments after death. This was surely an awful neglect! Hence, although he continued in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures for instruction, the bible was a sealed book to him, until the Lord was pleased to take away the veil from the eyes of his understanding. His natural disposition being lively and gay, and mixing with the world, as he grew up to manhood, he soon became inordinately fond of what are usually called innocent amusements, especially such as dancing, card-playing, &c. Nevertheless, in the midst of all his uncommon eagerness for, what he then thought to be harmless amusements and pleasures of the age, he was mercifully preserved from the more open and flagrant vices, and always had a great aversion to profane swearing, drunkenness, and debauchery. When he was about sixteen years of age, it pleased the Lord to incline his eldest brother William, who was a schoolmaster at Fotherby, to hear the Methodist preachers, by whose ministry he was truly converted to God, and evidenced the sincerity of his change by his upright conduct. He presently became a shining character, and zealous in the good cause he had espoused. He was, like all the primitive Methodists in those days, "a man greatly wondered at!" Nor can we be surprized that a life of genuine piety should excite such astonishment in those days, when we call to mind the universal darkness which pervaded the minds of our countrymen, prior to the time it pleased the great Head of the church to raise up a Wesley and a Whitefield, together with their coadjutors, to spread vital religion through the land! It appears the love he had to precious souls, led him to converse closely and affectionately with his brothers and sisters on the necessity and importance of a change of heart and life, as preparative to the kingdom of heaven. Not content with speaking to them, he also wrote, in verse, a most affectionate and faithful warning, in which he beseeched and exhorted them instantly to turn to the Lord. These verses my father carefully kept till the day of his death. But this affectionate treatment, instead of winning them over to the love of the truth, excited the enmity and opposition of his friends, with the exception of my father and his two sisters. The two latter, it appears, were, by the efforts of their brother, brought to the knowledge of the truth, and died in peace in the morning of life. Thus they realized the advantages of early piety, in preparing them for an early dissolution. My father's brother was also carried away by the small-pox, in the prime of his days, exchanging a vexing, suffering, and polluting world, for a state of rest and glory in paradise. In reference to his happy and triumphant death, my father says, "It made a deep impression on my mind. I attended his funeral, and could rejoice in the hope of meeting him in a better world, as I firmly believed he was gone to heaven." But, alas! this proved only as "a morning cloud, and as the carly dew." Being possessed of a great flow of animal spirits, and living "where satan had his seat," he soon lost these good impressions, and was carried away by the follies of the age, like a dead fish upon the rapid stream. He continued, however, regularly to attend the worship of his Maker in the established church; and, to use his own phrase, "wished to become better." But as the ministers whom he then heard were little better than "blind leaders of the blind," he continued in a state of mental darkness as respects the depravity of human nature, justification by faith in the atoning blood of the Lamb, and the nature and necessity of a thorough and radical change of heart by the grace of God. In this state of moral degradation, guilt, and wretchedness he continued, under the controul of sinful passions, sinning and repenting, until he was upwards of thirty years of age. He often reviewed these years with great astonishment at the long-suffering mercy of God, in bearing with him so long, and in striving with his rebellious heart. So powerful at different times, were these convictions, that he stood amazed to think the Lord should be so kind as not to make a public example of him. These reflections led him to weep, and pray, and promise, and even vow that if the Most High would have mercy on him, and bear with him till he entered into the marriage state, and got comfortably settled in the world, -that then he would serve him indeed. The Lord in infinite mercy spared him, and granted him his request. At the age of 21, he came, as a busbandman, to live with Mrs. Ann Wilson, of Grainthorpe, a widow lady, occupying a large farm; and in the course of three years married her youngest daughter, Ann, at the age of seventeen. She was gay, thoughtless, and unconcerned about the "one thing needful;" while in her mother-inlaw, he found great opposition to every thing spiritual and good. Hence, like many others, who promise great amendment when married, he found the necessary consequence of entering into the marriage state, without any regard toGod and religion, was that |
