THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 223
JOHN FAWCETT, D.D.
17391817.
FOR several hymns of average excellence we are indebted to this divine, who was chiefly remarkable for his laborious faithfulness to his people and his work during a long period of years. From his " Life and Letters," 1818, by the Rev. John Parker, and from other sources, we learn the following particulars : He was born January 6th, 1739, at Lidget Green, near Bradford, York shire. At the age of twelve he lost his father, to whom he was much attached, and was left one of a numerous family, with his widowed mother. The following year he was apprenticed at Bradford, where he remained six years. He had been brought up in connection with the Established Church ; but during his appren ticeship, when, at the age of sixteen, he heard Mr. Whitefield preach on the words, " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder ness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." John iii. 14. " As long as life remains," he says, " I shall remember both the text and the sermon." Changed in heart, he felt himself at first drawn into sympathy with Whitefield s followers, at that time called Methodists ; but three years after, in 1758, he joined the newly-formed Baptist Church at Bradford. At an early age he married Susannah, the daughter of John Skirrow, of Bingley.
After engaging in works of Christian usefulness, he was, in 1763, requested by the church at Bradford to go beyond private exhor tation, and to stand forth and preach the Gospel. This he did, though at first discouraged by the seeming difficulties of the work. In May, 1764, he went to be the Baptist minister at Wainsgate, where he was ordained, July, 1765. At first the pressure of the work was so great on him that he seriously thought of resign ing, and feared that he had undertaken a work for which he was not qualified ; but, overcoming his fears, he remained faithfully at his post, and after a time undertook also the labours of author ship. In 1772, he went to London to preach for Dr. Gill, who
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