The Life And Death Of William Crowther

Earthen Vessel 1882:

The Late Mr. William Crowther

His Life, His Letters, His Last Days, Funeral, &c.

“I go where God and glory shine: 

His presence makes eternal day;

My all that’s mortal I resign,

For angels wait, and point my way.”

‘’Lest Christ Be Offended.”

So said one of the ancients in his counsel, not to do anything, to choose anything, to write anything, with any other motive than to glorify our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Oh, what a difficult virtue is this when it cometh to the practice, to pass by, and neglect all glistening lures of the flesh and in the creature, and to know no man for any such carnal comparison, but, as he is seen and known as a new creature in Christ. When a man is seen and known to be in Christ, and as having Christ formed in his whole new and inner man as his only hope of glory, and as the only springing motive of his life, to magnify and to serve, and to honour Christ in all his movements, manners, and endeavours, then, in such Christ-possessing, and Christ-honouring men, delight thyself as in the most excellent of the earth, as the only true, gentle, noble worthies of the world.

“Good works,” said a white-wigged divine, long before this generation was born, “Good works are only good as the love of Christ constrains us to the practice of them.” I feel it is from love to the Spirit of Christ, to the grace of Christ, to the truth of Christ, which I saw to be in our departed friend, the late Mr. William Crowther, of Gomersal, which constrains me to pay this small tribute of deep affection to his memory. For, assuredly, our now translated brother was a man, every whit of him, who, with old master Lactantius and Fox, with boldness united to cry, “Mad and blind idolaters are they, who, not understanding that—

“Christ Of Purpose Trod The Wine-Press Alone!”

“shed His blood alone upon the cross,” thereby implying to us that if we shall mingle therewithal his mother’s milk, or even the blood of any other martyr, then would the precious blood of the Lamb lose its healing virtue, and instead of being a cleanser of our souls from all sin, would only poison them with the mixture of deception and of death. Nay, sirs! to all the compound merchants, who put the final efficacy of the atoning blood to rest upon the creature accepting it, to all who lay the value of Christ’s salvation upon the free-will of the sinner, either to receive it or to reject it, to all such the Lockwood decided Baptists know full well that their long and truly beloved pastor would declare that “No Jupiter will Christ be, but a Jehovah. No mere helper, but the Author and Finisher of our salvation.” To all merit and free-will mongers shall Christ, in His holy, just, and righteous jealousy, break out and say, “What have I to do with you?” ”If you can do all, or anything at all, without Me, then let Me alone! Let Me be either Saviour alone, Mediator alone, All-in-all, or none at all.”

Mr. Crowther’s “last letter” to the Church at Artillery-street, London, dated January 2, 1882, fully proves that his heart was as sound, his mind as clear, his faith and purpose as strong, in vindicating the great foundation principles of the Gospel as was that of Luther or Calvin, of Toplady or Huntington, of Gadsby or James Wells, or as of any of the Christ and Spirit-taught ministers who have lived, or yet do live, on the earth.

When commencing this brief review of a good man’s life, I was at first bound in spirit, and the question arose in the inner court, “What is your motive in writing and publishing a record of Mr. Crowther’s life and departure from this world? Is it to please any party? to court the smiles or favours of any friends? Are you setting yourself to eulogise, to extol, to magnify a man? I confess I paused. Presently Paul’s words came sharply up in my mind,

“And they glorified God in me!”

When the Galatian Churches saw what amazing mercy had been shown to him who “now preached the faith which once he destroyed,” then “they glorified God in him.” This was sufficient. I realised the fact that in the main I only desired to prove unto all who may read this small testimony, that in the person of the late Mr. William Crowther the Churches had a minister, a brother, a friend, a workman, and a witness for Christ, in whom the three sister graces—“Faith, Hope, and Charity”—did live, and also did fruitfully abide. And in his long affliction, in his final exit, all true lovers of a free-grace Gospel have sustained a serious loss. Who is to fill np that vacuum death has now made, the LORD alone doth know. Fill it up! Fill up the vacuum with another William Crowther? No, methinks that will never be. Circumstantially, constitutionally, conscientiously and graciously, Mr. William Crowther was, by divine appointment, qualified for, and enabled to fill the position he occupied; and, as there was never a second Moses, nor a second Joshua, nor a second David, nor a second Isaiah, nor a second Paul, nor a second Luther, nor a second Huntington, nor a second Wells, so neither will there be a second William Crowther; albeit, God, in His infinite mercy may give the Church many messengers, and many able ministers, who, with the unction of the Spirit in them, will still instrumentally feed the flocks in Lockwood and elsewhere. Let us briefly—

Review His Whole Life

Gomersal was his birth-place, in Field House, Gomersal, he breathed his last. He was a genuine Yorkshireman, and not often very far from his native soil. He came into the world April 2, 1816; his mother was a good woman, one of the Independent persuasion; his father made no profession of reIigion, but was a honorable and successful tradesman. From his earliest youth, “Mr. William Crowther had a tender conscience, and a fear of evil of every kind. There was, evidently, in young William’s soul a deep strate of sacred emotion toward true religion, but the evil tendencies of a sinful nature threatened at first to overwhelm and destroy that good, moral persuasion which he had imbibed from the spirit and example of his saintly mother. As he advanced into the teens of his upgrowing existence, the reasoning powers of a strong mind began to develop themselves in the most serious reflections and examinations of his real state as in the sight of God. How soon the divine Spirit commences His work in such souls no one can declare. The breaking up of the fallow ground, the sowing of the seeds of conviction, the “coming of the commandment,” the anxiety, at times “to be right;” all these breathings are exertions of the Spirit, and, at first, so secret, that no one can tell whence they proceed, nor whither they will go.

When, in his own autobiography (given in our pages just four years since), Mr. Crowther says,”I began to pray, instead of saying prayers I had been taught,” he makes us exclaim, with the beautiful philosopher, “Son! happy art thou that wisdom hath led thee hitherward.” “Behold her, the shepherdess of souls, who bringeth back the wanderers to God.”

“PREDILECTIONS!” “What are they?” asked the half-blind sage. “Sir! Alfred the Great was a man of strong predilections for the arts of poetry and music,” and he attained to an eminence in those sublime sciences. Predilections are the small bulbs of mental or of spiritual power, which strike down into the whole of the intellectual parts of the man, ultimately making him to come forth the kind of man which a divine Providence designed him to ripen unto. I wish to tread carefully here. To advance nothing at random. Elihu seems to stand at my elbow, and follows me in spirit with his solemn precaution. “Let me not, I pray you,” said Job’s counsellor, “accept any man’s person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man.” I am thinking it may be the last review of a good man’s life I may ever write, hence, with Elihu, I would not compliment men as men. I would not dare to give flattering titles; in so doing my Maker might soon take me away. But to search out the hidden germs of true wisdom and of saving grace, which the Almighty doth early implant in the vessels of mercy, is a service which the Spirit of God Himself was found in when He gave in the Old Testament saints names which did indicate their future character, which holy service culminated in that determined instruction, when He said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Predestination fixes the man’s character, condition, and sphere of life which he must occupy, while Providence and grace unite to train and qualify, to raise and ripen the man into his pre-ordained posture and work.

Our now deceased brother in Christ, referring to his early days, proves the truth of our assertion, that in the chief drift the good man is born to be what he ultimately comes to be. He attended prayer-meetings, school-meetings, Bible-meetings. What were the results? “The spirit of inquiry was greatly increased, and very rapidly developed in me, and I became intent on being able to answer and to understand whatever questions might be proposed.” William Crowther became a mental diver. He would probe a theory, a doctrine, a problem, a question, to its very source; and having thoroughly mastered it, having become possessed of the genuine truth of any subject, he would hold to it with a most tenacious grasp. His attainments in a kind of blossom of religion caused him to think he was “becoming properly religious.” He began to take notes of sermons, went with the minister to village stations, and took part in some of the services.

Blossom is not fruit! There may be the blossom of the schools, the variegated tints of a natural religion, which never bring forth fruit. But when the root is in God, when the tree is made good, its blossom will be blown off, but the living bud will come forth in due time with the blessed and permanent fruits of righteousness, of truth, and of peace. Some few old women were instrumental in stripping young William Crowther (when only about sixteen years of age) of nearly all his religions blossom. He became “sorely puzzled about the mode of salvation.” He had believed that salvation sprung out of human effort, which was equally within the power of every man. This is the kind of faith now almost universally prevalent.

From one delusion to another the young seeker was carried, until he lost all his conceits, all his confidences, all his contrivances, driven out of all the refuges of lies, he was at length set upon the firm foundation truth, that it is “by grace we are saved,” and by sheer sovereign grace alone. The Almighty Lord, the eternal Spirit, set his feet firm upon this rock, and he was never suffered to remove from it, even to the day of his death.

”The Bible, My Constant Companion.”

Such a sentence from a youth, from one who had been educated in a high-class school, from one who had been cradled in a system of natural piety, who had never heard a true Gospel minister, such a sentence bespeaketh the internal working of the ever adorable Spirit, who was, without external means, carefully preparing an honest mind to receive the truth as it is in Jesus, in all its rich and divine entirety.

William Crowther tells us he began, in connection with his Bible reading, to study the instructing and establishing works of Toplady and others, “on the free-grace side of the question; ” but (ah! here I feel a soul-companionship with him, having thus been helped on in my early researches for the right way), he says: “Crisp’s sermons were of special use to me in opening up more fully “THE GREAT SCHEME OF SALVATION, BY AND IN CHRIST.”

If ever an awakened and honest soul can cordially drink in streams of saving knowledge from the Word of God, and heartily welcome Tobias Crisp’s bold and blessed discourses, he will never more be satisfied with the milk-and-water theology of the general body of man-taught and man-ordained ministers.

Ministers! Men of every character, who profess some kind of faith in Christ, if I had a tongue like the archangel’s trumpet, I would labour to sound out to the ends of the earth—yea, I would, if God enabled me, sound into the souls of all, John Owen’s Denunciation Of That Preaching Poison which is now almost everywhere prevalent. Dr. John Owen, in his “Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ, God and Man,” writes down the following words:—

“Of all that poison which at this day is diffused in the minds of men, corrupting them from the mystery of the Gospel, there is no part that is more pernicious than this one perverse imagination, that to believe in Christ is nothing at all but to believe the doctrine of the Gospel, which yet, we grant, is included therein…Yet the poison overthrows the whole foundation of the relation of the church unto Christ, and of a full salvation by Him.”

Why, Dr. Owen! what do you mean? He answers, “I mean to evince that it is “the Person of Christ which is the first and principal object of that faith wherewith we are required to believe in Him; and that so to do is not only to assent unto the truth of the doctrine revealed by Him, but also to place our trust and confidence in Him for mercy, relief, and protection, for righteousness, life and salvation, for a blessed resurrection, and for an eternal reward.”

It is not believing what Luther says, or what Paul says, or what Huntington or Hawker said. It is not assenting unto, or jumping up for joy at what Spurgeon, or Liddon, or Farrar may proclaim. Nay, though an angel come down from heaven, a mere assent to his announcements might have no soul-saving effects, except the Holy Ghost create a man’s soul anew, so that by the ministry of the Gospel Christ is revealed in that heaven-born soul, and that heaven-born soul, by the instrumentality of the Gospel, is carried up to embrace, to close in with, and to become united into the glorious God-Man, Christ Jesus the Lord. Without these God-wrought creations, revelations, and vital unions, no soul ever can be saved.

This was the faith young William Crowther was led to see was the faith of God’s elect, and it became a spiritually-cemented and granite-like foundation in his soul, and from it the Three-One Jehovah never allowed him to be removed for just upon fifty years. Some of his friends became angry, tried severely to hinder him in his pursuit after the saving knowledge of God; but in vain. The minister under whose preaching he had sat was hoping William would go to college, and there study for the ministry. See what a firm stand against this our young hero made! He says, my reply was,—“No! I will never go to a college in this world to learn to preach!” Furthermore, he added, “I do not believe any such places will be found in the world to come. If ever I be a preacher, I will be one of God’s making and calling, and I will know it before I begin.”

Up to this period, when he was seventeen years of age, he had never heard a Gospel sermon, he had no opportunity of getting to any place where the truth was preached; but from the Scriptures he had become fully convinced of the propriety of baptism by immersion. Surely this was a genuine work of the Lord Himself, in leading a young man from darkness to light, from error into truth, from a natural free-will to heaven’s free-grace plan of salvation, without any mere human instrumentality. The Lord carried young William Crowther right unto truth, doctrinally, experimentally, and practically, and then opened up channels for confirmation and for fuller developments as time rolled on. He happened to hear that one Mr. Kershaw, of Rochdale, was to preach at some place about five miles from Gornersal. William walked to the place. Mr. Kershaw took for his text, “I am poor and sorrowful; let Thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.” He says: “That sermon made such an impression on my mind, that I could, in a great measure, repeat the sermon now, though near forty years ago.” We must leave for a future number what may be termed Mr. Crowther’s ministerial life, the full particulars of which we hope to gather up in our next journey into Yorkshire. The end of that life, with his letters, written during his long and last illness, will be given in detail if the providence of our God spares the life of,

C. W. BANKS.

South Hackney, March 1882.

—————————

The Closing Scenes Of This Life

“When the throes of death assail me, 

Weep not for me!

Christ is mine! He cannot fail me;

Weep not for me.

Yea, though passing clouds endeavour 

From His love my soul to sever, 

Jesus is my strength for ever,

Weep not for me.”

Job was a great preacher on the article of death! He had been in close acquaintance with it, and his expositions and exclamations are thrilling, and telling, and true. He draws out four lines, which correctly reached the case of our departed brother. The man of Uz says (1) Man dieth. The Hebrew is, “strong and powerful man dieth.” When we were at Field House, when Mr. Crowther had been unwell for some time, and when the medical gentleman had hinted to him that a real recovery might yet take some months, even at that time, one who had watched Mr. Crowther’s failing of physical strength, said to me, “I fear be will never again be the man he has been.” It was too evident that he was gently, silently dying. Job’s second view is stronger: “Man wasteth away.” Natural death steals upon man part after part until “he giveth up the ghost.” Death steps in by piece-meal; at last, death enters the port, takes full possession, and the man is gone; and now, look for him, seek after him, cannot ye find him? No. Where is he? That is—in the restricted sense—‘’Where, in the world, is he?” Why nowhere. His spirit, his immortal spirit, his ransomed soul is fled from time for ever.

Our son, and sub-editor, Mr. Robert Banks (just as we were going to press), wrote a paragraph last month, indicating the much more serious illness of Mr. William Crowther, of Gomersal. Alas! before we could issue some thousands of our March number, the painful tidings came that he was gone, which in some of the March issues we announced briefly. But,—how did the good man finish his work? Our faithful brother and co-worker in the ministry, Mr. S. O. Dolbey, pastor of the Slaithwaite Strict Baptist Church, has written for us the following most important epitome of the closing scenes. He says:—

“It was about a fortnight before his death that the change which indicated the fast approaching end took place; and with the change in his physical condition there was also a feeling in the mind that the divinely appointed number of his days were but few, and the work of life was ended. That this was really so, appears from what he said to the deacons, who saw him about eight days before he died. Whilst speaking about the supplies for his pulpit, he remarked that he could be of no further use to them in that respect, for his work was done. Thus the long cherished hope of being able to speak for his much loved Master, in whose service he had been for nearly fifty years, was cut off, and he felt that the work of the ministry must be left to others.

“Let us hope that there may yet arise an Elisha who shall wear the ministerial mantle of our departed brother. Four days after this he was put to bed, and continued there until the end of his mortal life. Being asked if Christ was precious, he replied, ‘Most exquisitely so,’ thus showing that his faith was vigorous and strong, and that its glorious object was seen and blessedly realised.

“A letter sent by one of the daughters to the deacons, the day before he died, contains the following:—

“‘Dear father is no better, nor likely to be in this world. He is much calmer and quieter today, but we know his strength is going fast; he cannot talk now, but he tries to put his hands together as if in prayer. He is resting on his Saviour, and looks calm and resigned; our prayer is, that he may leave us so.’

“He was convulsed about an hour before his death, but passed peacefully away. Just as the curtains of nature were drawn over the earth, and the sun sank behind the horizon, the curtain that hides the invisible from the visible was drawn aside, and the emancipated spirit took its flight, washed, sanctified and perfect, to the glorious region of light and bliss. Thus ended the days of this holy man of God. ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last days be like his.’ ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.’

“The funeral took place on Thursday the 2nd inst. The mournful company left Field House at 11 a.m., and proceeded slowly to the church of St. Mary’s, Gomersal. There were in attendance, the magistrates of the West Riding, Lieut.-Col. Sheard representing the borough of Batley, representatives of the Gomersal Mechanics’ lnstitute, the Gomersal Local Board, Cleckheaton Liberal Club, the leading gentlemen of the district, and the deacons and members of the Church at Rehoboth, Lockwood, with many others. Arriving at St. Mary’s, the Rev. R. F. Taylor, the vicar, read the burial service of the Church of England to a crowded audience; after which the coffin (which was of massive oak) was borne to the grave, and the remaining part of the above service was read. The benediction having been pronounced, Mr. J. S. Anderson (London) gave a very appropriate address, in which he pointed out the main features in the character of the deceased. Speaking upon the religious aspect of his character, he remarked that he was connected with a denomination of Christians whose views of truth were not at all popular, but he observed that the views of’ truth which the deceased held were the fruit of patient and thorough investigation, and having once been satisfied with the foundation of the same in the Word of God, he held them with characteristic firmness unto the end. After prayer the assembly broke up, and the sacred ashes were left until they shall be required at the resurrection of the just, when “death shall be swallowed up in victory.”

From Filed House To Gomersal Church-Yard

“Forward, Christian I think of home! 

Forward! till ye thither come; 

Every step, ’tis yet more nigh: 

Forward! be your rallying cry.”

Apart from the light of revelation, how full of melancholy agony is the fact that the noble, the intellectual, the useful, the devout man is laid, cold and silent, in death, and all that remains thereof is carried with due solemnity and hidden in the dark and silent tomb! The first time that we meet with the word “bury” is when “our forefather Abraham” had lost his much tried, yet patient and affectionate Sarah. She died in Hebron. Abraham was not with her, but “Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” When he came and saw her laying in death, he became silent in sorrow. But the good old man was still a man. He girds up the loins of his mind, he stands up from before his dead, and he speaks unto the sons of Seth, saying, “I am a stranger, and a sojourner with you, give me a possession of a burying place with you that—“I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

Helplessly, we come into the world! 

Some one must nurse us;

As helpless, we leave the world, 

Some hands must bury us.

O! the final parting! O, the pang and pain! 

Every nerve upstarting!

When shall we meet again?

O death, what art thou?

An husbandman, that reapeth always,

Out of season as in season, with the sickle in his hand.

Alas! as annihilate by sin, the soul was ever forfeit:

Godhead paid the mighty price, the pledge hath been redeemed.

At that exciting hour, when thousands of ministers were risen up to announce those words of God, which their sermons were to expound unto their people, in that beautiful, almost park-hidden mansion, called “Field House,” in Gomersal (near that immense centre of people, the town of Leeds), at seven o’clock on Sunday evening, February 26, 1882, the ransomed soul of William Crowther left its muscular and strong-built tabernacle, and fled away to the higher and brighter regions of immortality and of eternal glory. What a night was that for Field House! A widow of unusual devotion and affection, a son fatherless, two daughters bereaved! The voice of the master of the house is no more to be heard. He is gone. It seems but the other day I sat with him in his study, walked with him in his park, communed with him on some things dear to our hearts; he said, ‘’The doctor told me at first it would take me two years to recover from this attack, one year is gone, and I feel better.” The good man was cheerful, hopeful, meek, gentle, patient, and kind. On January 2, 1882, he wrote a strongly affectionate and encouraging letter to the Church at Artillery-street, London, towards the end of which he says, “I am yet laid aside from active work, but am hoping I may be better when the Spring returns. I may say, I am standing on the solid foundation, on which I have now stood for nearly fifty years.”

Thus, when the year opened, he had the same hope which he expressed to me when we walked and talked together. But, as his much esteemed friend, Mr. Walter Howe, of London, says, in a brief note, “A sudden failure of vital power (which speedily reduced him to extreme weakness) leaves little to be said of the last two or three days.” All is now expressed by the black-bordered tablet:—

In Remembrance Of William Crowther, Of Field House, Gomersal, Born April 2, 1816, Died February 26, 1882.

Now comes the last service, the many-million-timed saying comes yet once more, “Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.” Not a martyr from the hands of literal stone-casters, as Stephen was, but when professed brethren commence casting stones and daggers at one another, deep wounds are often inflicted, which here never can be healed.

The burial of Mr. William Crowther, of Field House, was attended with lamentations from hosts of true friends of every class, of every caste, of almost every condition. That God Almighty may comfort the widow’s heart, and appear for the Lockwood Church, now bereaved, is the heaving prayer of one who knew the deceased over twenty years, and in whose possession are many of his spiritual communications. 

Gomersal Churchyard presented such a scene as, perhaps, was never witnessed in that country cemetery for very many years, if ever. A spirit of contemplation, in not a few, would speak within:—

“When mourners meet around the tomb 

Of one for many years beloved,

Not unexpectedly called home,

But yet too soon, too soon removed—

This thought should stay the painful tear, 

This hope again the joy restore:

He lives, although no longer here,

He is not lost, but gone before!”

The weather on Thursday, March 2, 1882, was unpropitious for any public procession; but a large company was seen congregated together to witness the carrying the body of the good man to the tomb. Many—very many—gentlemen who had been associated with Mr. Crowther, either on the judicial bench, in business, in the social or religious circles, were present. An immense number of his personal friends assembled at the Works near Field House before eleven o’clock. Mr. Crowther’s work-people walked before the hearse; thirteen of his work-people acted as bearers; superintendents, sergeants, and members of the West Riding constabulary lined the road, guarding and preserving order to and in the Church. The vicar of Gomersal read the burial service in the Church, which was crowded. The widow and the family followed in mourning coaches; and about thirty carriages came on in the rear. Gentlemen of very high position were present to express the great esteem in which our deceased friend was held by them; in fact, the whole country around was dispirited at the loss of one who, in every station-towards all his neighbours, in whatever form he could, he manifested that solid, practical good feeling and conduct which knit their hearts unto him as unto a father, a brother, a counsellor, and friend. The local Reporter says: “Death has removed from our midst one of our leading citizens; a man who, in his day, has worked earnestly and faithfully for the public good.” But we are now at the grave. The clergyman has finished reading the appointed service from the Book of Common Prayer. Mr. J. S. Anderson, minister of Zion Chapel, New Cross, commences an appropriate address. I do not profess to give this entire; the principal parts of Mr. Anderson’s discourse at the grave are reported as follows:—

“He said that in ordinary cases it would not only be undesirable, but improper, to add anything to the beautiful and impressive service to which they had just listened. It was most appropriate, and he was sure they could all join in its reference to their dear departed brother. But that was not an ordinary occasion, because Mr. Crowther was not an ordinary man. By the providence and grace of God he occupied a prominent position in a great many different relations of life, and he filled those positions with honour to himself, and with acceptance to others; and hence in his removal a bright and shining light in this district had been extinguished. One of the pillars of society in the district had been broken, and he would be missed by all classes with whom he was brought into contact, either in domestic or social relations. Notwithstanding the modesty and humility of their departed friend, when the village in which he resided, and many beyond that district, had suffered a great loss, it would be almost a criminal silence on his part not to allude to Mr. Crowther’s many excellent qualities. He was an honourable and upright man, and just one of those friends that one felt one could trust and confide in with all one’s heart, and he commanded the respect and esteem of all who knew him. He was one of those persons whom, the longer one knew, and the closer they were brought into contact with, the more highly they respected, and the more deeply they loved. He (the speaker) was well aware—and perhaps that was the reason why he was there by the courtesy of the vicar, and at the request of his friends—that, religiously speaking, the deceased gentleman was, as some might think, somewhat peculiar; but his peculiarities were the result of deep and honest convictions, arising from a prayerful study of the sacred Scriptures, and when once convinced of any truth, that truth became as dear as life to his heart; and he would, therefore, at any cost, maintain and promulgate that truth to the best of his ability. By his removal a small section of the Christian Church, or of one particular denomination, had suffered a great loss. There was a vacuum in the home, there was a vacuum in the factory, there was a vacuum on the magisterial bench, and there was a vacuum in the little Church at Lockwood, that could not easily be filled. After further eulogising the deceased gentleman’s unostentatious religions life, and his social and business qualities, the Rev. gentleman went on to impress upon his hearers the solemn lessons the sad event was calculated to teach. He then offered a brief and fervent prayer, after which the assemblage slowly dispersed. During the somewhat long service at the grave the weather was intensely cold and wet.”

———————

Mr. William Crowther As A Benefactor To The World, And As A Faithful Preacher In The Church

Very few men can be found in this kingdom who have the means and the mind, the circumstantial and the intellectual powers to carry out such a benevolent and evangelical course of life as did the late lamented pastor of the Lockwood Baptist Church. The venerable Mr. Thomas Jones, now of Broseley, writes: “I know nothing of our lamented Brother Crowther which is not known to all the Church—that he was an able preacher of the truth, and truly liberal in helping poor causes. He was envied by some who ought to have been grateful to God for the gifts He had given and sanctified for Zion’s benefit. His early trials testified to the fact of his adoption, and helped to qualify him for comforting mourners.”

Funeral Sermons

“Funeral sermons,” as they are called, were preached in many pulpits on the occasion of Mr. William Crowther’s departure. At Lockwood, to the bereaved Church, Mr. J. S. Anderson, of Zion chapel, New Cross, on Sunday afternoon, March 12, delivered a solid and comprehensive discourse on the words, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not: for God took him.” The subject was, communion with God here, and the consummation of that communion with God in glory. Nothing, we think, could be more appropriate to the occasion. Mr. Anderson clearly showed that communion with God here was an essential qualification, and a grace-wrought meetness for the glory of the heavenly state. No undue exalting of their departed and sincerely beloved pastor, but a sober, a brotherly, a scriptural, an honest, a justly-deserved tribute to his memory, was faithfully and feelingly rendered.

On the evening of the same day, in Artillery-street chapel, in London, Mr. Thomas Stringer gave Mr. Crowther’s friends and a large congregation one of his very best and most characteristic expositions of the words,”Call the labourers, and give them their hire.” We have read Mr. Stringer’s sermon with solemn pleasure, with hopeful anticipation. The text was rightly divided, the minister’s work was correctly defined, his call cheerfully distinguished, and his reward gently touched: It being far beyond the reach of the most gifted orator here fully to unfold that exceeding weight of glory into which the righteous shall enter. Our brother Thomas, in the delivery of this discourse, was quite at home, and gratefully declared the nobility of mind, the benevolence of spirit, and Christian charity, which so largely characterised and habitually shone forth in the life of the much lamented, genuine English gentleman, and most useful Christian, the late William Crowther, Esq., of Field House, Gomersal, near Leeds. Both these discourses are published, and may be had of Mr. Robert Banks, Racquet-court, Fleet-street, and at the chapels where they were delivered.

The Magistrates On Their Late Colleague

Wm. Carr, Esq., on Monday, on taking his seat in the West Riding Courthouse at Dewsbury, along with William Blakely, Thomas Taylor, and Joshua Whitaker, Esqrs., made feeling allusion to the deceased. He said: “I am desired to say a few words with regard to the serious loss which we have all sustained. The bench of magistrates has lost one of its most valued members by the death of Mr. Wm. Crowther. It is not necessary for me, in a place where you all know the course of his life and actions so well, to say anything in the way of eulogy as to the life he has led. He has for very many years led a life of great public usefulness. Very early he was engaged in the public service. For many years—I believe fourteen or fifteen—he discharged the onerous functions which fall to the lot of a Chairman of a Board of Guardians; he was also chairman of the Assessment Committee, and how he discharged those duties, and with what advantage to the poor and the ratepayers generally of this petty sessional division, is very well known to many here. Mr. Crowther brought with him to this bench a trained intellect, an accurate knowledge of the law of evidence, and a practical knowledge of the law as bearing upon all social questions which was simply invaluable. He has left behind him a record of public duties unostentatiously and most unselfishly discharged: and in the whole of his long public life, both in his efforts to promote elementary education and all other forms of social improvement, he showed ungrudging liberality, and I may say the most faithful, earnest wish to benefit others, and his life is an example in that respect to all of us.”

The Bradford Observer published the following verses from a correspondent in memory of the deceased gentleman:—

In Memoriam—Feb. 26, 1882

W—e mourn: for lo! a man hath passed away.

I—n very truth an uncrowned king of men.

L—ost to us all ere yet the mind’s decay

L—eft room to doubt his ripening years. Amen. 

I—n council wise he towered above his peers,

A—nd all revered his judgment. As a friend, 

M—anly and steadfast as the hope that cheers.

C—hangeless in purpose: firm to shape his end; 

R—eligious, but no bigot: such was he.

O—bedient to his conscience’ voice alone;

W—edded to truth; in manner mild and free;

T—he path of duty clearly for him shone.

H—is time, his voice, his purse to public claim

E—ver were open, free from selfish aim.

R—est to the noble dust that bore his honoured name.

S. D. R.