In regard to the S.S. which he persisted in writing after his name. Huntingdon says, “M.A. is out of my reach for want of learning; D.D. I cannot attain for want of cash; but S.S. I adopt, by which I mean ‘sinner saved.’” He married as his second wife the wealthy widow of Alderman Sir J. Saunderson, once Lord Mayor of London. His death occurred in 1813, at Tunbridge Wells.[174] One of his best known works is entitled “The Bank of Faith,” an extraordinary record of his own personal experience in illustration of the doctrine of special providence. His sermons, etc., were published in no less than twenty volumes.
REV. ROBERT MORRISON, D.D., CHINESE SCHOLAR AND MISSIONARY.
A maker of wooden clogs and shoe-lasts is hardly a shoemaker, in the commonly understood sense of the term, yet he stands in a very close relation to the gentle craft, and for this reason we may not unfairly claim Robert Morrison of Newcastle as a member of the illustrious brotherhood of the sons of St. Crispin. Dr. Morrison was the pioneer of modern missions to China, and did for the people and language of that country what another shoemaker did for the people of Bengal. The youthful Northumbrian had only a plain elementary education, and after he became an apprentice, spent all his spare time in reading religious books. At the age of nineteen he gave up his humble trade and began to study under a minister, who passed him on in two years to the academy at Hoxton, where he made such progress, that in a short time he was sent to London to study Chinese under Sam Tok, a native teacher, with a view to his becoming a missionary to China, in connection with the London Missionary Society. In 1807, he sailed for that country, and his rare gifts as a linguist were shown in the publication of a Chinese version of the Acts of the Apostles, after only three years’ labor, in 1810. The Gospel of Luke appeared in 1812, and the entire New Testament in 1814. With the help of William Milne he issued the Old Testament shortly after the last date. His labors were not confined to the translation of the Sacred Scriptures. His greatest work was a “Dictionary of the Chinese Language,” published in 1818 by the Hon. East India Company at a cost of £15,000. He also edited a Chinese grammar. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow.
In 1817, Dr. Morrison accompanied Lord Amherst in his embassy to Pekin, and afterward, as the last great work of a noble life, founded an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, to whose funds he left the bulk of his property. On his return to England in 1823 for rest and change, his great gifts and labors as a linguist and a missionary were cordially recognized in many quarters. The Royal Society made him a member, and King George IV. honored himself, as well as his distinguished subject, by seeking an interview with him. In 1826 he returned to the field of his missionary labors. On his death at Canton in 1834, England lost her best Chinese scholar, and one of the most devoted, self-sacrificing, and useful missionaries who ever left her shores.
THE REV. JOHN BURNET, PREACHER AND PHILANTHROPIST.
The eloquent and popular minister of Camberwell Green Congregational Church, the Rev. John Burnet, who divided his time and energies between preaching and philanthropic labors, is claimed by the craft as one of the most gifted and useful men who have sprung from their ranks.[175] He was of Highland descent, and was born in Perth, 13th April, 1789. His early education at the High School of Perth must have given him great advantage over most youths of the souter fraternity. How long he plied the awl we cannot say. Soon after his union with a Christian Church in Perth his friends discovered his gifts as a speaker, and encouraged his adoption of the ministry as a profession. To this end they supplied him with funds, and for a time he studied with much advantage under the Rev. William Orme of Perth. In 1815 Mr. Burnet removed from Perth to Dublin, and soon afterward became an agent of the Irish Evangelical Society. His labors at Cork proving acceptable to the Independent Church there, he was invited to become their pastor, and for fifteen years was well known by all the Protestants of the district as an eloquent and faithful preacher. The growth of his congregation led to the building of a handsome new chapel for his ministry in George Street. But his labors were not confined to these localities (Cork and Mallow). His biographer states that “he continually visited the other towns and places in the South of Ireland, preaching in the court-houses, market-places, and frequently in the halls of the resident nobility and gentry—all the Protestants gladly giving him the requisite facilities. On these journeys he had usually a free pass by the mails and coaches, but he travelled a good deal on horseback.”[176]
It would have been an easy matter for Mr. Burnet to enter Parliament, if he could have been persuaded to quit the ministry and devote himself entirely to political life; for he was popular with the Liberals of his day, had rare gifts as a speaker, and was thoroughly acquainted with politics. But the best efforts of his friend Joseph Sturge, and the offer of ample means to maintain the position of a member of Parliament, failed to induce him to accept the flattering offer. He was constantly employed as a platform speaker, and never refused his aid to any cause “affecting the rights of the people or the progress of humanity.”
For many years he was on the Committee of the Bible Society, the London Missionary Society, the Irish Evangelical and the British and Foreign Sailors’ Societies. Yet with all this public work he never neglected the duties of the pastorate, but occupied his pulpit efficiently from Sunday to Sunday, and held several meetings during the week for the instruction of his people. In 1845 his brethren of the Independent Connection showed their esteem by electing him to fill the chair of the Congregational Union.