Not long after this, Ingham had to mourn the death of another and dearer friend. After twenty-seven years of connubial happiness, his noble and Christian wife was taken from him. During her fatal sickness,
“She continued to exercise those Christian graces for which she had been long distinguished. Of herself and her efforts, her view was ever humble, and every reference to her usefulness she met with grateful acknowledgment of the sovereignty of that grace, that made her the instrument of good to others. Her end, though painful, was triumphant. She welcomed the hour—she longed to receive the prize of her high calling. ‘Thanks be to God! thanks be to God!’ she exclaimed, ‘The moment’s come! the day is dawning!’ and thus, in holy ecstasy, she winged her way to glory.” “When she had no longer strength to speak to me,” (wrote Ingham), “she looked most sweetly at me and smiled. On the Tuesday before she died, when she had opened her heart to me, and declared the ground of her hope, her eyes sparkled with divine joy, her countenance shone, her cheeks were ruddy: I never saw her look so sweet and lively in my life. All about her were affected; no one could refrain from tears, and yet it was a delight to be with her.”
Lady Margaret Ingham died on the 30th of April, 1768, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.
Her sorrowing partner did not long survive. He, also, four years afterwards, in 1772, passed away to that “rest which remains to the people of God,” leaving behind him a son, who, for a time at least, united himself with Wesley’s societies, and officiated as a local preacher.[118]
“In person, Ingham is said to have been extremely handsome—‘too handsome for a man’—and the habitual expression of his countenance was most prepossessing. He was a gentleman; temperate, and irreproachable in his morals; as a public speaker, animated and agreeable rather than eloquent; studious of the good conversation of his people, and delicately fearful of reproach to the cause of Christ.”[119]
His societies, once so flourishing, gradually dwindled. In 1813, when they became united to the Daleites, or Scotch Independents, they were thirteen in number, assembling in the following places—Wheatley, 56 members; Winewall, 41; Kendal, 27; Nottingham, 25; Salterforth, 21; Bulwel, 17; Tadcaster, 14; Howden, 11; Wibsey, 10; Leeds, 9; Rothwell, 8; Haslingden, 8; Todmorden, 5. So far as has been ascertained, these, at the present moment, are reduced to six,—Winewall, (the largest and most flourishing,) Wheatley, Todmorden, Kendal, Tadcaster, and Leeds.[120]
REV. JOHN GAMBOLD, M.A.,
THE MORAVIAN BISHOP.
The whole of the Oxford Methodists intended to devote their lives to the service of the Church of England. This, at Oxford, was their highest wish and holiest ambition. The future was hidden from them,—fortunately so. Without this, their brotherhood would not have lasted for a single week; and many of the results of their godly intercourse would never have been realized. How different from the course of Clayton was that of Ingham; and how different again was that of Gambold from that of Whitefield and the Wesley brothers; and again, how different was that of Hervey and Broughton from any of the others! Men would have ordered it otherwise; but who will say that the way of Providence was not infinitely better? There may be much in the lives of men that is mysterious and perplexing; but of all the sincerely pious it may be confidently asserted,—“A man’s heart deviseth his ways, but the Lord directeth his steps.” The subject of the following memoir is no exception.
John Gambold was born April 10th, 1711, at Puncheston, in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. His father, a clergyman of the Church of England, lived an ornament to his profession, and was greatly respected, for his unaffected piety and purity of manners. The children of this devout minister were educated with the utmost care and attention, and no pains were spared to instil into their minds the principles and precepts of the Christian religion.