But we must return from our digression, which its great importance must excuse.
Before he left England, Mr. Marsden formed or renewed an acquaintance with many great and good men, Mr. Wilberforce, Sir George Grey, the Rev. Daniel Wilson, late Bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and others whose names are dear to the church of Christ. But we must particularly notice the friendship which he formed with Dr. Mason Good as productive of the highest blessings to his friend, and of much advantage to himself.
The life of this excellent and accomplished person was published by Dr. Olinthus Gregory, soon after his death, in 1828. He tells us that Dr. Mason Good, when he became acquainted with Mr. Marsden, had long professed Socinian principles, but of these had recently begun to doubt, while he had not yet embraced the gospel of Christ so as to derive either comfort or strength from it. He was anxious and inquiring; his father had been an orthodox dissenting minister, and he himself a constant student and indeed a critical expositor of the Bible. He had published a translation of the book of Job, with notes, and also a translation of Solomon’s Song of Songs. He saw in the latter a sublime and mystic allegory, and in the former a poem, than which nothing can be purer in its morality, nothing sublimer in its philosophy, nothing more majestic in its creed. He had given beautiful translations of many of the Psalms; but with all this he had not yet perceived that Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament, nor did he understand the salvation of which “David in the Psalms, and all the prophets,” as well as Job the patriarch “did speak.” His introduction to Mr. Marsden, in such a state of mind, was surely providential. He saw, and wondered at, his self-denial; he admired the true sublimity of his humble, unassuming, but unquestionable and active piety. “The first time I saw Mr. Marsden,” says his biographer, “was in January, 1808; he had just returned from Hull, and had travelled nearly the whole journey on the outside of a coach in a heavy fall of snow, being unable to secure an inside place. He seemed scarcely conscious of the inclemency of the season, and declared that he felt no inconvenience from the journey. He had accomplished his object, and that was enough. And what was that object, which could raise him above the exhaustion of fatigue and the sense of severe cold? He had engaged a rope-maker who was willing, at his (Mr. Marsden’s) own expense, to go and teach his art to the New Zealanders.” So writes Dr. Olinthus Gregory.
As a philosopher who loved to trace phenomena to their causes, Dr. Mason Good endeavoured to ascertain the principles from which these unremitting exertions sprang; and, as he often assured his friend, Dr. Gregory, he could trace them only to the elevating influence of Divine grace. He could find no other clue; and he often repeated the wish that his own motives were as pure, and his own conduct as exemplary as those of Mr. Marsden. Thus light broke in, and at length he received the gospel “as a little child,” and began to adorn it by his conduct. For several years he was an efficient member of the committee of the Bible Society, and of that of the Church Missionary Society. To the latter especially he devoted himself with the utmost activity and ardour, and at his death, which occurred in 1827, the committee transmitted to Mrs. Good a resolution expressive of the very high value they set on his services, and of the heavy loss they were conscious they sustained by that event. The resolution was accompanied by a letter of cordial sympathy from the pen of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, the secretary. When dying he was, heard, without any suggestion or leading remark from those around him, to repeat with quivering lips the text, “All the promises of God in him (Christ Jesus) are Yea, and in him Amen.” “What words,” said he, “for a dying man to rest upon!”[H]
FOOTNOTES:
[F] To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.
[G] Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.
[H] See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.