One more biographical notice must close our list, and with it we make an end of our chronicles and “Rambles in an Old City.”
To those who were among the privileged number of friends, acquaintances, or even fellow-citizens of Joseph John Gurney, it will be easy to imagine why so beautiful a subject has been chosen for the closing sketch of our “pencillings by the way;” and the world at large will see in the name of the great philanthropist, whose memory sheds a sacred halo over every spot familiar with the deeds of gentle loving-kindness, tender mercy, and active benevolence, that marked his earthly career—a meet theme from which to borrow a ray of glory to brighten the scene of our “Ramblings,” as the landscape borrows a golden tint from the lingering beams of the sun that has set beneath the horizon.
As the brother of Elizabeth Fry, her fellow-worker in the field of usefulness, and her companion in her memorable visits to the prisons of England, Ireland, Scotland, and the Continent, his history could not have failed to possess a deep interest, even apart from the individual characteristics of his bright and beautiful home-life, and the lustre shed upon his name by its familiar association with those of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Buxton, in the cause of slave emancipation.
The third son of John and Catherine Gurney, and sister of Priscilla Wakefield, he was born at Earlham Hall, August 2d, 1788. It is a singular fact connected with the name, that one of his ancestors, in 1653, was sent a prisoner to the Norwich gaol, for refusing to take the oath, and that Waller Bacon, of Earlham, who committed him, resided at the time in the very Hall which the descendants of the prisoner afterwards occupied. When Joseph was only four years of age, the family of eleven children lost the superintending care of their mother, and his home education mainly devolved upon his three elder sisters, among whom was Mrs. Fry. Their home was the scene of rich hospitality, dealt out by their liberal-minded father; and the literary tastes, intellectual pursuits, and elegant accomplishments, in which every member of the social group delighted, drew around them a brilliant circle of the choicest society, to which the late Duke of Gloucester was a frequent and welcome addition.
The scholastic instruction of Joseph John was at first superintended by a clergyman, and afterwards matured at Oxford, where he attended the professor’s lectures, and enjoyed many of the advantages of the university, without becoming a member or subscribing to the thirty-nine articles.
Such an education naturally tended to create some doubts as to the system of Quakerism; but after much
examination and consideration, his preference became settled in favour of the views and profession of his old “Friends;” and consistently with them he lived and died, by no means finding in them any barrier to the fullest and freest association with any other body of Christians, or to a personal friendship with the ecclesiastical bishops of the diocese, with one of whom, Bishop Bathurst, he was a frequent and esteemed guest; while to Bishop Stanley was left the melancholy opportunity of bearing a testimony to his public and private character, in the memorable form of a funeral sermon from the cathedral pulpit, a tribute of respect unexampled since the days of George Fox. His life spent in doing good, in preaching as the minister of the society to which he belonged, in England, Ireland, upon the Continent, and in America, was full of interest. In the legislative hall, at Washington, before the assembled members of Congress, his voice was heard. Louis Philippe, Guizot, and De Stael, were among his auditors in France; the King of Holland abandoned, through his counsel, the importation of slave soldiers from the Gold Coast; Vinet at Lausanne, D’Aubigne in Geneva, and the King of Wirtemberg, held council with him. To attempt to chronicle his deeds of pecuniary munificence, public and private, would be an herculean task. The great sums lavished upon public societies, the world of necessity was made acquainted
with, but they formed but a moiety of the aids furnished from his abundance to the wants of the needy. He was truly one whose left hand was not suffered to know the deeds of its fellow. The sick and the poor, at home and abroad, the industrious and the struggling, the aged and the young—each and all shared his bounty and loving help, for he was one who gave, and did not fling his charities down from the proud heights of opulence, so that poverty might blush to pick them up. But the record of his life was inscribed upon the page of history in characters indelible by the tears that watered his pathway to the tomb. We have made a faint effort to paint the last solemn scene that marked the close of the lamented Bishop Stanley’s career, and were almost tempted to place side by side with it the shade of grief that hung over the city when the great “Friend” was suddenly called home from his labours of usefulness and love upon earth. Few will ever be able to forget the scene of mourning and sorrow that followed the unlooked-for event, or the almost unparalleled silence of woe that was written upon every heart and countenance among the thronging thousands that attended to pay the last tributes of respect at the grave of the beloved and honoured philanthropist; when Magistrates and Artizans, Clergymen and Dissenting Ministers, Churchmen, Independents, Baptists, Methodists, and Friends, representatives of every grade of society and shade of religious opinion
that the Old City could send forth, gathered around that lowly spot of earth to drop a tear, and seek inspiration from the spirit of love that seemed to breathe around the silent tomb. And who will forget the thrilling prayer offered up from the lips of the widowed mourner, who fulfilled, in the midst of that heart-stricken multitude, her measure of obedience to the will of Heaven and the duty of self-government, by public prayer and thanksgiving. Who does not rank among the noblest of the many noble sermons of the good Bishop Stanley, the far-sounding appeal that was sent forth from the pulpit of his cathedral, “Watchman, what of the night?”—the commemorating words that have been inseparably linked with the name and memory of Joseph John Gurney from that hour.
Years have passed since these events occurred, but the remembrance of them is vivid; the rich legacy bequeathed to the Old City by the holy life, walk, and conversation of such a man is not soon expended; but treasured in the sanctuary of many loving hearts, it is nurtured, and brings forth fruit, fifty, seventy, and a hundred-fold, to the honour and glory of God, and to immortalize the memory of a faithful servant in the vineyard of souls.