scriptions, and were accustomed to meet early in the mornings, so as not to interfere with other claims. He was one of the first Trustees. As Steward, he sought to make the House of the Lord attractive and comfortable. He promoted harmony and excellence in the choral department of its services; and on the morning and evening of the Lord's Day, and on the week-day evening as well, was regular and punctual as a worshipper. Planted in the courts of the Lord's House like a tree by rivers of water, he brought forth fruit in his season, his leaf did not wither, and what he did prospered.

In 1843 Mr. Rawsthorne was appointed as a Class Leader. The Superintendent of the Circuit, Rev. Thomas Murray, apprized him of the appointment in the following letter, which, as illustrating the esteem in which our friend was held at that time, may be appropriately inserted here :

'January, 1843.-My dear Brother, I feel a solemn and sacred pleasure in informing you that, after a very full and deliberate consideration of the matter, the Leaders' Meeting has appointed you to the office of Leader in the Dewsbury Society. You are directed in the Lord's name to take charge of Brother Child's Sunday morning Class. Thus an opportunity is afforded you of falling in with your covenant engagements. I pray that the Great Head of the Church may bless this appointment to you, and that you may long be spared faithfully to discharge its duties. If the sainted dead are acquainted with the transactions of the Church militant, your departed uncle will rejoice in last night's transactions. I have but to add, for your encouragement, that the appointment was unanimous, and therefore you will feel the more free to consent to it.'

His usefulness in this important office, which he retained till about three years before his death, proved the wisdom of the Leaders' Meeting in their choice. His care and counsel were highly prized, and were rendered a great blessing to those under his immediate charge. His sympathy was not limited to the spiritual well-being of his members, but extended to their temporal circumstances also.

For many years Mr. Rawsthorne sustained the office of Circuit-steward; and by his courteous attention to the comfort of the Ministers and their families, and by his judicious arrangements, did much to place the Circuit on a sound financial basis and to raise it to its present rank in the Connexion.

Mr. Rawsthorne not only commanded the respect and love of the friends in his own Circuit, but was known and esteemed by many throughout the District. The lay members of the Leeds District Committee, at their Annual Meeting in 1869, testified their respect and confidence by electing him as their representative to the following Conference, in Hull. He was also a member of the Committees for the management of Woodhouse Grove Schools and of the Wesleyan College at Headingley.

The services rendered by Mr. Rawsthorne were not limited to his own religious denomination. He was made Justice of the Peace for the borough in 1868, and in the following year was elected Mayor.

Towards the close of his mayoralty the committee and teachers of the Sunday-school expressed their sense of the value of his services to that institution, and their joy in his municipal elevation, in the following address:

'Honoured and dear Sir,-We, the Officers and Teachers of the Dewsbury Wesleyan Sunday-school, avail ourselves of your year of office as Mayor to acknowledge with gratitude the services you have rendered to that school. Those services, rendered so long, so quietly, with such unselfish and unflagging zeal, contributed materially, under God's blessing, to its present usefulness and prosperity. That your labours have had such a result, we are sure you esteem your best reward. We do not wish to enumerate all the qualities which have won our high esteem, but we cannot do less than say, that we honour in you, the happy union of a successful Christian and citizen, equally blameless and useful. May the Church ever have sons as well qualified to serve their country! May the State ever have magistrates as friendly to Christian institutions, which are the best safeguards of public order! Your appointment to the highest civic honour in the Borough is especially pleasing to us, as ratifying our favourable judgment of your life and character. Still, we know that you value most the esteem of those among whom your heart has found its earthly home. To other attractions, you have said with the Shunammite, "I dwell among mine own people." None as they can so earnestly desire that there may be yet in store for you many years of honour and usefulness; and that when you come to the grave, it may be "in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season."'

During the latter years of Mr. Rawsthorne's life, there was a large increase of Methodist chapel and school accommodation in Dewsbury and places adjacent, with provision for further increase. We leave out of our enumeration what was done in the Ossett and Horbury Circuit, which was separated from Dewsbury in the year 1869, and confine ourselves to places in the town and its immediate vicinity. A chapel was built at Ravensthorpe, and a site secured for another. At Batley-Carr, a chapel was built with accommodation for a thousand hearers, and the old chapel converted into schools. At Thornhill Lees, first a school was erected, and then a chapel, in place of one of smaller dimensions. One of the last enterprises in which Mr. Rawsthorne took a very active part, secured to the Connexion the fine site on Moorlands, on which a large school-chapel has been built, with a spacious central hall, and fifteen Class-rooms, with land for a first-class chapel. A new chapel has also been erected at Saville Town, and a mission-room opened in a district near the Leeds Road.

In these enterprises, where Mr. Rawsthorne did not lead he followed, putting his shoulder to the wheel, and by united and persistent effort on the part of many, progress was secured. By giving according to his ability, by accepting financial responsibilities when necessary, by counsel, by the devotion of time and thought, by skill in organization, by loyalty to law and to responsible authority, by influence over others, secured by his high character, his consistent example, his good sense, his fine temper, and by his courteous and agreeable manners, he directly and indirectly helped to provide the population with Christian ordinances, which, fed by the River of Life, will prove wells of salvation from generation to generation.

For several years, Mr. Rawsthorne frequently suffered from extreme nervous prostration and painful vertigo. About four-and-a-half years before his death, his affliction assumed a more decided and threatening form, compelling him to give up, one after another, his offices in the Church, and to retire from business altogether. It was a great trial to find that his public work was

done, and to resign functions the discharge of which had been a source of so much pleasure to himself, as well as of profit to others; but yielding himself to the Divine disposal, he said, 'It is the Lord : let Him do what seemeth Him good.'

During the summer of 1875 he went to Harrogate, where he met with a former Superintendent, who gives the following illustration of that consideration for others which distinguished Mr. Rawsthorne in sickness as in health : 'Unable to walk but very short distances, I was being wheeled along in a hand carriage, when my old Steward saw me from his window, and, though very ill, hastened to meet me. After mutual enquiries, looking at my carriage with that cheerful smile so natural to him, he said, "Come, we can improve on this"; and day after day, for several weeks, he sent his servant with his phaeton to give me country drives. These rides did much towards my restoration to health and service.'

The last time he was able to go to the house of God was early in September, 1877. The sermon was one of great spiritual profit, but the excitement proved too much for his shattered frame, and within a week he was again confined to his room. During the months which followed he was often the subject of deep depression, but the Word of God was his stay, and latterly every other book ceased to interest him. The fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel often gave him encouragement, and the hymn, 'Rock of Ages,' gave expression to his faith. During restless nights he would ask his wife to repeat it again and again; and many times fell asleep with the last verse falling on his ears :

'While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold Thee on Thy throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.'

His friend, Mr. Joseph Cocker, who called to see him a few days before his death, says: 'I shall never forget his calm and peaceful appearance. He showed the interest he still felt in the school and the Society by the enquiries he made respecting them; and then, speaking of the love of Christ, he raised his hand, and, with deep feeling, pointing upwards, said, "I shall soon be at home."

For

On January 25th he awoke early, complained of oppression at the chest, and asked to be raised in bed. It was evident that the end was near. three days he seldom spoke, but the pressure of Mrs. Rawsthorne's hand, when the favourite hymn or a verse of Scripture was slowly repeated in his ears, showed that he was still in the body. He passed within the veil, January 29th, 1878.

On the following Friday his remains were borne to the Centenary Chapel. A large congregation was present, including the magistrates of the borough, 'the members of the Town Council, and office-bearers from different parts of

the Circuit, who followed to the cemetery all that was mortal of Joseph Tweedale Rawsthorne.

The following communications from friends who knew Mr. Rawsthorne at different periods of his life, show their estimate of his character and service. The Rev. Elijah Jackson, whose acquaintance with him, we have seen, extended over a period of forty years, and who was on the ministerial staff of the Circuit from 1845 to 1848, says:

'His piety was genuine and operative, evidenced in spirit and in practice rather than in words. Some do good by proxy, giving of their substance, but leaving others to do the work; Mr. Rawsthorne placed all on the altar of his Lord: his health, his influence, his property and his time. It is difficult to say how large a proportion of the latter was devoted to the interests of the Church. The claims of his own business were made secondary to those of Christ. Few men have spent more time in obtaining promises of help, collecting subscriptions, attending meetings for the transaction of the Church's temporal and spiritual affairs, and few have been more successful. When others were sure that some contemplated undertaking could never be accomplished, he scattered their fears and rallied their courage, by expressions of cheerful assurance, smiling at the idea of defeat.'

Mr. Joseph Cocker, who was intimately acquainted with him for thirty years, and associated with him during that time in Church work, writes:

'I was from the first greatly impressed by his gentlemanly demeanour, the kindliness of his spirit, and the interest he took in promoting everything that was calculated to do good. He seemed to have the life, the power and the influence of several men in one; and had the happy art of inspiring those associated with him with the same high and noble aims. Indeed, it was hardly possible for any one to be associated with him long without being influenced by his example, and to some extent imbibing his spirit.'

The Rev. John Fletcher, who went to the Dewsbury Circuit in 1860, says:

'I shall ever cherish the memory of Mr. Rawsthorne's high integrity; of his noble, frank and generous disposition, to which everything unkind and mean was abhorrent; of his genuine piety, and of his faithful devotion of good sense, clear judgment and extensive influence to the service of the Methodist Church.'

The Rev. J. M. Bamford, who was appointed to Dewsbury in 1866, says: The more I knew of Mr. Rawsthorne, the more I esteemed his character and valued his friendship. His wise and generous influence undoubtedly pervaded the whole Circuit. He led others not merely by the force of his position, but by the strength of his Christian integrity and activity. I have seen him as a worshipper in the congregation; in the Sunday-school as an instructor of the young; among his people as a counsellor, as a man of prayer and as a Steward of their interests; I have seen him in official meetings discharging the temporal business of the Church; and in the quiet of his home, in liter social fellowships and hospitalities, in its trials and bereavements; and he always impressed me as a real Christian man.'

His brother-in-law, the Rev. Edward Day, says:

emleg to eqit evollst

'Mr. Rawsthorne was one of the most generous and unselfish men I ever met with generous not by occasional impulse, but consistently and constantly so; generous by principle and habit, both in little things and great ones. He always seemed to consider others more than himself. It was touching to see when he was very ill and very weak how he would try to do little services for callers or guests, who ought rather to have been waiting

on him. In that habitual consideration for others he was a gentleman. Though lively, pleasant and jocose, he was always self-restrained and never forgot himself. Considering his temperament, for he was naturally ardent, he was remarkably even-tempered. I never saw him irritable. The most provoking annoyances he took very calmly. He was cautious in arriving at decisions, but very firm and almost immovable when he had made up his mind. The cause of God was very dear to him. He quite made it his own. I think it gave him at least as much anxiety as his own affairs: he thought about it night and day, and planned and schemed for it as much as he did about the affairs of his own business. Every one knew how generously he supported it with his purse; so much so as almost to give a wrong impression as to the extent of his pecuniary ability. He lived a devoted, useful and generous Christian life.'

THE NEW RELIGION:

I. THE NEW DEITY:
BY THE REV. W. L. WATKINSON.