CHAPTER V.
MEMORIALS OF THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH AT ASHLEY AND WILBARSTON.
It might appear to be difficult to some of the Nonconformists of the present day to decide, why their forefathers should fix on this village as a place where they should carry on the stated ministrations of the Gospel, and form a Church on Congregational principles. The population of the village is too small to present a suitable sphere in itself for a Dissenting congregation, while the Episcopal Church has the patronage of the State and receives her emoluments. It was probably regarded by those engaged in its formation as presenting a central spot, where the Nonconformists who resided in surrounding villages might conveniently assemble. Hence, during its early history the hearers travelled from a number of places in the vicinity. One of the stated hearers, who died at an advanced age a few years ago, and who had been connected with the place from his earliest days, informed the writer that he remembered hearers coming from thirteen villages to attend under the ministry of the Gospel at Ashley. Since that period Chapels have been erected in several of those villages, in which stated services are conducted; and this, as a matter of course, diminishes the number of travellers to the old places.
The history of the Independent Church at Ashley is connected, during the first 60 or 70 years of its existence, with that of Market Harborough. It was formed under the labours of the same minister, about the same time (1673), and continued under the charge of the same pastors until some time after the death of Mr. David Some. For the character and labours of its first pastors (Mr. Matthew Clark and his son, succeeded by Mr. Some, who had Doddridge as an assistant for a time), the reader is referred to the preceding memorials of the Church at Harborough. The record of members of the Church, preserved in the handwriting of Mr. Some, shows that Church-meetings were held at Ashley, members admitted there, the Lord's Supper administered; proving that it was regarded as a distinct Christian society, under the pastoral charge of the minister of the Church at Harborough. After Doddridge came to reside at Harborough, and became assistant to Mr. Some, he took his turn in preaching at Ashley. Tradition says, that on one occasion he baptized nine children at the house of a respectable farmer at Weston, about a mile from Ashley, whose family were long connected with the place, and at whose house the minister frequently, in those days, dined on the Sabbath. From Doddridge's own pen we learn that some of his published sermons to young people were preached at Ashley, for he dedicates them to the young people in the congregations at Northampton, Harborough, Kibworth, Hinchley, and Ashley, as the places where they had been preached. The following note is appended to the sermon entitled 'The Orphan's Hope,' from Psalm xxvii. 10: "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up":—"This sermon was preached at Ashley, in Northamptonshire, March 6th, 1725, to some young persons whose father, mother, and sister had all died of the small-pox a few days before." In the introduction to the discourse he observes—
There are few precepts of the Gospel which will appear more easy to a humane and generous mind than those in which we are required to weep with them that weep; and surely there are few circumstances of private life which will more readily command our mournful sympathy than those of that afflicted family, to the poor remains of which you will naturally, on the first hearing of these words, direct your thoughts, and perhaps your eyes too—the circumstances of a family which God hath broken with breach upon breach—of those distressed children whose father and mother have forsaken them almost at once, and who have since been visited with another stroke, which if alone had been very grievous, and when added to such a weight of former sorrows is, I fear, almost insupportable. I believe all of you who are acquainted with the case sincerely pity them, and wish their relief; but I am under some peculiar obligations to desire and attempt it, not only on account of my public character, but as I know the heart of an orphan, having myself been deprived of both my parents at an age at which it might reasonably be supposed a child should be most sensible of such a loss. I cannot recollect any Scripture which was then more comfortable, as I think none could have been more suitable, to me, than that which is now before us.
He touchingly and beautifully addresses the orphan family towards the close of the discourse.
It must have been eight or ten years after the death of Mr. Some, which took place in 1737, before the Church at Ashley had a pastor placed over it separate from the Church at Harborough, for the first pastor here appears to have been a Mr. John West, who had been a student at Northampton in Doddridge's academy; for though we have no account preserved of the period when he commenced or when he closed his ministry, yet we find that he entered the academy at Northampton in the year 1740. If immediately on the close of his studies he became the pastor of the Church at Ashley, according to the usual term this would not take place until 1745 or 1746; and as we find another pastor chosen within eleven or twelve years from this time, and have no further account of Mr. West, it is probable that he closed his life and his ministry at a comparatively early age.
In the year 1757, Mr. Samuel Bacon was chosen pastor of the Church at Ashley, in which office he continued for 32 years. The residence of Mr. Bacon's family was Sutton-in-Ashfield; he studied for the ministry at the academy at Mile End, when Dr. Conder and Mr., afterward Dr., Gibbons were the tutors.
It is supposed that Ashley was Mr. Bacon's only charge; during his ministry here his residence was at Wilbarston. No particulars have been preserved of his character or ministry, the success of his labours, or the state of the Church while he was pastor. He appears to have been highly esteemed, and was spoken of by his friends as one of the most lovely, amiable men they ever knew. Mr. Bacon was one of the first trustees for the Meeting House at Weldon and the property connected with it, and one of the monthly lecturers there for a number of years, frequently conducting also the extra service they obtained on a Sabbath evening in addition to the monthly lecture. At Corby also Mr. Bacon had some engagements of a similar nature. We find his name inserted in the account of the ordination of Mr. J. Fuller, at Kettering, in 1772. He died rather suddenly, February 6th, 1789, and was buried in the Meeting House, beneath the pulpit, where Mrs. Bacon was also interred, and Mrs. Talbot, one of his three daughters.
In the same year that Mr. Bacon died, Mr. George Bullock was invited to become the pastor, and entered on his stated ministry; residing, like his predecessor, at Wilbarston. He was a student at Mile End when Dr. Addington was tutor, and we have heard that he was a favourite student of the Doctor's; one memorial of this we have seen. There is in the hands of a daughter of Mr. Bullock a neat pocket Bible, in two volumes, published in 1640, that evidently was used by Dr. Addington when he preached in the villages in the vicinity of Market Harborough, having on the fly-leaves the texts of the sermons noted down very neatly, with the places where they were preached, and the time of the service; also four hymns selected from the Olney Hymns by Newton and Cowper, suitable to sing at the services, written in shorthand, according to the system of Jeremiah Rich, improved by Doddridge. This Bible was given by his tutor to Mr. Bullock, as the following memorandum, written in each volume by Mr. Bullock, testifies:—