The Hero of the Humber | Page 8

Clowes. I
found that life was gone and that his happy spirit had taken its flight to
heaven. 4th.--I am more than ever convinced of the great advantage we
derive from entire sanctification; it preserves the soul in rest amid the
toils of life; it gives satisfaction with every situation in which God
pleases to place us.'
[Sidenote: HIS RELIGIOUS WARMTH.]

Sailor like Mr. Ellerthorpe was earnest, impulsive, enthusiastic,
carrying a warm ardour and a brisk life into all his duties. He did not
love a continual calm, rather he preferred the storm. He did not believe
that because he was on board a good ship, had shaped his course aright,
and had a compass never losing its polarity, that he would reach port
whether he made sail or not, whether he minded his helm or not. He
knew he couldn't drift into port. With waterlogged and becalmed
Christians or those who heaved to crafts expecting to drift to the
celestial heaven, he had but little fellowship. Such he would cause to
shake out reefs and have yards well trimmed to catch every breeze from
the millenial trade winds.
CHAPTER III.
HIS CHRISTIAN LABOURS.
Having become a subject of saving grace, Mr. Ellerthorpe felt an
earnest desire that others should participate in the same benefit. Nor
was there any object so dear to his heart, and upon which he was at all
times so ready to speak, as the conversion of sinners. He knew he did
not possess the requisite ability for preaching the gospel, and therefore
he sought out a humbler sphere in which his new-born zeal might spend
its fires, and in that sphere he laboured, with remarkable success,
during a quarter of a century. I now refer to the sick chamber.
During all that time he took a deep interest in the sick and the dying;
and for several years after his conversion, having much time at his
disposal, he would often visit as many as twenty families per day, for
weeks together. When Cholera, that mysterious disease, with its sudden
attacks, its racking cramps, its icy cold touch, and its almost resistless
progress, swept through the town of Hull, in the year 1849, leaving one
thousand eight hundred and sixty,--or one in forty of the entire
population,--dead, our friend was at any one's call, and never refused a
single application; indeed, he was known as a great visitor of the sick
and dying, and was often called in extreme cases to visit those from
whom others shrank lest they should catch the contagion of the disorder.
The scenes of suffering and distress which he witnessed baffled

description. On one occasion he entered a room where a whole family
were smitten with cholera. The wife lay cold and dead in one corner of
the room, a child had just expired in another corner, and the husband
and father was dying, amidst excruciating pain, in the middle of the
room. John knelt down and spoke words of Christian comfort to the
man, who died in a few moments.
[Sidenote: HE VISITS THE SICK.]
For years, he was in the habit of accompanying Mr. Jones, when
visiting the miserable garrets, obscure yards, and wretched alleys in
Hull, and was considered his 'right hand man,' in helping to hold
open-air services. They often went in company to such wretched
localities as 'Leadenhall Square,' then the greatest cesspool of vice in
the Port, and, well supplied with tracts, visited every house. During the
intervals of public worship, on the Sabbath day, when he might have
been enjoying himself in the circle of his family, on a clean hearth,
before a bright fire, he was pointing perishing sinners to the Lamb of
God. When our new and beautiful chapel in Great Thornton Street was
discovered to be on fire, at noon,--March, 1856, he was at the bedside
of an afflicted woman, Mrs. Wright, speaking to her of her past sins
and of a precious Saviour. He had spent some time with her daily for
months, but just at this time he became Foreman of the Victoria Dock
and could no longer pay his daily visits to the sick, which greatly
distressed Mrs. Wright and others; but duty called him elsewhere and
he obeyed its voice. He says, 'I durst not make any fresh engagements
to visit the sick, and up to the present time (1867) I have rarely been
able to visit, except on the Sabbath day, all my time being required at
the dock gates. But on the Sabbath I love to get to the bedside of the
sick; nothing does me more good; there my soul is often refreshed and
my zeal invigorated.'
Those who are most averse to religion in life, generally desire to share
its benefits in death. Their religion