The grandfather of Joseph[1] honoured his Huguenot ancestors as a noble army of martyrs, and continually prayed that their posterity might be worthy of them. He presented his grandson with a folio copy of “Fox’s Book of Martyrs,” with this inscription in gold letters:—
Joseph Sortain.
This book is the gift of his grandfather.
My son, remember thou the God of thy fathers.
The grandson obeyed the injunction. One proof of this was, that in after years, when at the head of a household, he was in the habit of reading the twenty-third Psalm at family prayers on the evening of every Saturday. If he was asked for an explanation, he would reply, “It was a custom of my Huguenot forefathers, and I wish to gain inspiration for my Sunday duties by the associations it thus calls up.” His grandfather also bequeathed to him some money to provide for his education for the Christian ministry.
Although a native of Clifton and a student of Cheshunt College, he had to repair to Dublin for his university education, the English Universities being then shut against him as a Nonconformist. The year of his matriculation at Trinity College was 1828. He left Dublin in 1831 with a view to his ordination at Brighton. He, however, returned occasionally to his University to attend examinations, and it was in the year 1833 that he took his degree. In the latter year he married Bridget Margaret, third daughter of (the then deceased) Sir Patrick M‘Gregor, Bart, sister of Sir William, who died in 1846, and of Sir Charles, who at the latter date succeeded to the baronetcy. Mr. Sortain had been bereaved of his father in 1830 and of his sister in 1832; his mother survived until 1838.
His ministry in Brighton was one of great fidelity, brilliancy, and celebrity. In the Examiner newspaper for 8th May 1856, there was this allusion to him:— “There is a chapel in Brighton which is always attended by a crowded congregation, because the attention is not exhausted before it is riveted by one of the most eloquent preachers of our time in the highest sense of the word — the eloquence of the earnestness of a pure, enlightened, and earnest spirit, for such is Sortain’s.” The gifted W. M. Thackeray characterized him as “the most accomplished orator I have ever heard in my life.” Mr. Justice Talfourd bore witness to his “eloquence, which, even to one who has heard Robert Hall, is wholly unsurpassed.” Sortain during his whole life enjoyed the friendship of that noble band of Nonconformist ministers known as The Clayton Family.[2] He wrote to Rev. George Clayton on his mother’s death:—
My very dear Sir, — In the Globe last Saturday, I read an account of the death of the invaluable Mrs Clayton. . . . I have been thinking if it is possible to imagine a case in which death could have been more fully deprived of his wonted sting. Mrs Clayton has been spared so long [to the age of ninety], and meanwhile had the declivity of life made so gentle in its descent — has had the usual monotony of age so cheered and kept alive by the active events and usefulness of her sons’ lives — and has been so fully comforted with the consolations of hope and faith — that I can conceive of no more holy or pleasing an end. She has indeed been a shock of corn fully ripe. In some instances it would seem as if the seed was left too long after maturity, only to gather mildew and expend its healthiness. But this, though the ingathering has been long delayed, was still golden. . . .
Seven years afterwards he had to condole with the same family on the death of their father in his eighty-ninth year. He said, “You and your whole family have the best sympathies of the entire Christian Church. I believe there never was a servant of Christ who, after a most honourable, dignified, consistent, and useful life, waited for the consolation of Israel with a more legitimate hope. It was his lot to be the link between the calm, sober-minded, judicious ministry of the former gene-
- ↑ I am mainly indebted to his published Memoir, 2d edition. London, 1862.
- ↑
Rev. John Clayton,
b. 1754, d. 1843,
Minister of Weighhouse Chapel, London,
Married in 1779 by Rev. Wm. Romaine.= Mary Flower,
died 11th January 1866,
aged 90.Rev. John Clayton, jun.
b. 1780, d. 1865,
Member of the Eclectic Society,
Minister at Kensington,
ultimately at the Poultry.
Retired in 1848.Rev. George Clayton,
b. 1783, d. 1862.
Minister, first at Southampton,
ultimately at York Chapel, London.Rev. William Clayton,
b. 1784, d. 1838.
Minister at Saffron-Waldon,
ultimately chaplain to the
Grammar School, Mill Hill, Hendon.
