was quite the reverse. When writing
for the polite world,[800] his style was odiously florid; but his
sermons for his simple parishioners were plain and natural both in style
and substance. Personally he was a man of simple habits and genuine
piety, a good son and brother, an excellent parish priest, and a patient
sufferer under many physical infirmities. He had no exaggerated opinion
of his own intellectual powers. 'My friend,' he said to Mr. Ryland, 'I
have not a strong mind; I have not powers fitted for arduous researches;
but I think I have a power of writing in somewhat of a striking manner,
so far as to please mankind and recommend my dear Redeemer.'[801] This
was really the great object of his life, 'to recommend his dear
Redeemer;' and if he effected this object by writing what may appear to
us poor stuff, we need not quarrel with him, but may rather be thankful
that he did not write in vain.

_Grimshaw of Haworth_ (1708-1763) was another clergyman of the last
century who formed a connecting link between the Methodists proper and
the later Evangelical school. On the one hand, he was an intimate friend
of the Wesleys and other leaders of the Methodist movement, both lay and
clerical; he welcomed them at Haworth and lent them his pulpit; he took
part in the work of itinerancy, and, in fact, threw himself heart and
soul into the Methodist cause. On the other hand, he was, from the
beginning to the end of his ministerial career, a parochial clergyman;
he does not appear to have been indebted to Methodism for his first
serious impressions, and he maintained his position as a moderate
Calvinist, though he wisely kept quite clear of the controversy and
never came into collision with his friend Wesley on this fruitful
subject of dispute. The scenes of his energetic and successful labours
were the moors about Haworth, the bleak physical desolation of which was
only too true a picture of the moral and spiritual desolation of their
population before this good man awakened them to spiritual life. The
eccentricities of 'mad Grimshaw' have probably been exaggerated; for
one knows how, when a man acquires a reputation of this sort, every
ridiculous story which happens to be current is apt to be fathered upon
him. No doubt he _was_ eccentric; he possessed a quaint humour which was
not unusual in the early Evangelical school; but he never allowed
himself to be so far carried away by this spirit as to bring ridicule
upon the caus