Brief memoir of Dr. Thomas Bateman.

  • Religious Tract Society
Date:
[1830?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brief memoir of Dr. Thomas Bateman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as visibly ripening -for heaven. His faith and patience were strengthened, his hope was increased, his charity en¬ larged; yet he was naturally so extremely reserved in the expression of his feelings, that he rarely spoke of them till within the last month of his life, when he rejoiced “ with a joy unspeakable and hill of glory,” which bore down all opposition; for he experienced a happiness to which all the accumulated enjoyments of his whole pre¬ vious life could bear no proportion or comparison, even that “ peace of God” wdiich “ passeth all understanding,” and which must be felt, or at least witnessed, in order to form any just conception of its nature and effects. What a striking* example did our dying* triend now exhibit to us ! !Frqm his early youth he had devoted himself with delig'ht and industry to the acquisition of knowledge, and the pursuits of literature and science; and he had his reivard^’ in the honour and reputation which his success had procured for him, a reward which he keenly enjoyed and very highly prized. Those who have known only the pleasures which arise from worldly gratifications, surely ought to recollect, that, being confessedly ignorant of those spiritual enjoyments which they despise, they cannot be competent to decide upon their reality or their value : it belongs only to those who have experienced both, to ap preciate either. And how did Dr. Bateman appreciate them ? Xn contrasting, as he firequently did, his present happiness with all that he had formerly enjoyed and called happiness, he seemed always at a loss to find words to express how poor, and mean, and despicable, all earthly gratifications appeared to him, when compared with that “ joy and peace in believing,” which now filled his soul; and “ one . particle of which,” he, sometimes said, “ ten thousand worlds would not tempt him to part with.” And it should be remembered, that this was not the evidence of a man disappointed in his worldly pursuits: he had already, as before observed, “ had his reward” in this world—^he had experienced the utmost success in the path which he had chosen—he had been keenly suscep¬ tible of intellectual pleasures ; and of these, as well as of all inferior amusements, he had enjoyed more than a common portion; but when the only object that can satisfy the affections, and fill the capacities of a rational and immortal being was revealed to him—when he viewed 234
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