By Rev. William Hague A Baptist Preacher of One Hundred Years Ago
U b ^ 0)e'~ An_,autobiographical and historical letter by Rev. William Hague nub- n ^ ,edw n ¿ ondoi*, in entitled, “The H and of God, 'seen in the Conversion of S & - 5 / JfflSSSm and ° / which the following is a portion, has fallen into our hands through the kindness of Joseph Campbell of W est Orange, N. J„ a distant relative L i L S n ? the au to h io p ap h y who was a B aptist m inister in Scarborough, S b S a?ieo-i^ri,lle-Wer,r!ls -h t ££$ b,e wl lng to subscribe to every m inute point of doc- n ^ n e au filtr,f0rtvimpl-le^ . m H?e skftch, it throw s a very interesting light on the re- Hgious lire of the eighteenth century.—Editor.
WAS horn át Maltón, on thé 19th day of November, 1736, of poor but honest laboring parents. My mother had six children, three Sons and as
master, my parents, and my native place and came to Scarborough and obtained em ployment. [Beginning at this point, Mr. Hague tells how he was attracted by the gaudy dress of the sailors, it being then the time of war with France, and how he apprenticed him self as a sailor. He did not enjoy his sea faring life though he, faithfully served his term of three years, during which he says he ^grew both fat and strong. He tells of the great wickedness and profanity of the men on shipboard, and himself gave away to the latter disgusting habit, and glorie'd in it, as he says, to his own shame. He was now twenty-three years of age and re solved that if he ever got back to land he would renounce his bad. habits, go to church on Sunday and be religious. The swearing habit left him he knew not how, and he soon
many daughters, four of whom died-in their infancy, only a brother and myself being permitted to live to maturity; of which two I am the youngest, and the only one left of the family, and I am waiting to follow my ancestors to the grave, the place appointed for all living. In the first eight or ten years of my age I was very small and weakly, on which account my parents thought it most proper to choose some light and easy business for me; therefore in the • year 1750 (being then in my fourteenth year), I was put apprentice to a barber in Malton, for the term of six years, which time I duly seryed; and in the year 1756, being then in my twentieth year, I left my
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