THE LIFE OF THE REV. SAMUEL WALKER. CHAPTER I. FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS CONVERSION, AND FIRST FRUITS OF HIS MINISTRY. Design of this memoir. THERE are many names more conspicuous in the religious history of the last century than that of Samuel Walker, of Truro, because their exertions extended over a wider surface; but no minister has left for the imitation of posterity, a more perfect pattern of parochial administration. While others, engaged in a laborious itinerancy, were endeavouring to break the spell of that awful lethargy which had spread its fatal charm over the land, this exemplary pastor was constructing from limited and unpromising materials, a model of the private duty of such as are appointed to spiritual cures among settled portions of the people. It is the object of this volume, to collect and re-unite the scattered fragments of this admirable study for every shepherd of a flock, and particularly for those who design, in humble reliance on assistance from above, B to employ, for the benefit of souls committed to their charge, the truly scriptural and therefore effective machinery of our church. The subject of this narrative was born in the city of Exeter, Dec. 16, 1714, and was the youngest of seven children. Members of his family had represented their native place in parliament for many generations, amongst whom was his paternal grandfather, Sir Thomas Walker, Knight. In addition to this reputable connection, he had the honour of being lineally descended from the great Bishop Hall, by the marriage of the only daughter of the youngest son of that distinguished prelate with the last mentioned gentleman. His parents were Robert Walker, Esq. of Exeter, and Margaret, daughter of the Rev. Richard Hall, minister of St. Edmund and AllHallows, in that city. Till he was eight years of age, Samuel was the subject of parental tuition under his father's roof, but received the next ten years' education at the grammar school in Exeter. We have no account of the progress he made in learning during his boyhood, or of his character in the midst of his schoolfellows, but his works all bespeak the judicious early cultivation of a naturally powerful and discerning mind. At eighteen he was sent to Exeter college, Oxford, where he cultivated logic with much success, and always considered his early devotion to that study, as the foundation of the facility he afterwards attained in a clear and methodical arrangement of his ideas. When complimented by his friends, who admired the lucid and argumentative mode in which he treated every subject, he always |