200 OUR HYMNS I
on the Galatians." Then he began to devote all his leisure to the reading of the Scriptures and of religious books. There were at Sheerness a few persons who used to meet on Sunday afternoon to read and pray, after the service of the Established Church was ended. Among them he found the Christian sympathy and help he required.
In the year 1752, when he was twenty-three years of age, the Society encouraged him to lead their devotions, and to read ser mons to them ; and as he ripened in his manhood, he found great en couragement to self improvement from his friendship with a book seller at Eochester, Thomas Fisher, who obtained books for him, and encouraged him to learn languages, and to pursue theological studies. In 1763 the Society erected a meeting-house, and he con tinued to read sermons to them whenever ministers could not be obtained, (till 1766.) After that year he expounded to them, and at length undertook public preaching, though with great diffidence, and with some apprehension that by so public a procedure he should for ever forfeit the promotion which he expected in the dockyard. This fear proved to be groundless, and he received the promotion he desired. Subsequently, he preached on Sundays at Sheerness, and occasionally at other towns in Kent. In 1773 he was appointed master mastmaker at Woolwich, but later in the same year he received promotion at Sheerness, and returned to be with his old friends. This was the year in which he was bitten by a mad dog, and his life was thus put in jeopardy. It was to relieve his anxiety with respect to his family if a fatal result should follow, that he occupied his mind with his " Christian Memoirs."
In 1784, a great blessing having attended Mr. Shrubsole s ministry, it was found necessary to erect a new chapel, and this in its turn had three years after to be enlarged. In 1793 he had a paralytic stroke, and two years after, in consequence of his increas ing infirmities, a co-pastor, the Rev. Mr. Buck, was appointed. On Sunday, the 5th of February, 1797, he preached with fervour in the afternoon, but on Monday he was taken with an alarming illness that terminated his life on Tuesday, the 7th. He had often ex-
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