THE  LIFE  STORY
OF THE LATE

               REV. JOHN MAYLARD

EREFORD is the city which claims the distinction of having given John Maylard to the world.  It is the capital of the county which bears that name.  It is an antique place and is situated in a fertile and well cultivated valley on the left bank of the Wye and is 120 miles W.N.W. of London.  The houses are chiefly of brick, though the public edifices are of stone.  Of the latter the most remarkable is the Cathedral, built in the reign of William the Conqueror on the site of an earlier structure.  This is a stately fabric, the spire handsome, but not high, with a fine tower at the west end.  The only other buildings of special note are the College, a venerable but gloomy looking building, adjoining the cathedral, the Shire Hall, County Hall, and the Jail.  The manufactures are hats, gloves, leather, earthenware, and cutlery, and the trade is in cider, grain, hops, bark, and wool.  All round the city its ancient walls may be traced though overgrown with trees, hedges, etc.  Towards the north the city is overlooked and sheltered by a prodigious mountain of steep ascent, with a vast camp at the top, called Credon Hill, from which is a prospect as far as St. Michael’s Mount, in Monmouthshire, and is much resorted to by Romanists.  On the other side is a vast bleak mountain, which separates Breknockshire from Herefordshire.  Outside the walls of the city are the tuins of Blackfriars Monastery, and a pretty stone cross entire, round which were the cloisters, as now the cloisters of the cathedral enclose just such another.  This cross served as a kind of pulpit, whence a monk preached to the people in the open air.  The two great stones near Sutton, erected as a water mark, were removed in 1652 to about 240 paces distance, and nobody knew how; but when set in their places again, one of them required nine yoke of oxen to draw it.  In the time of the civil wars, Hereford being very strong, and as well defended, supported a very severe siege against the Parliament’s forces, and the Scottish army, 4,000 of the latter having laid their bones there.  The city, however, at last surrendered to the fatal issue of the war, rather than any vigorous attack of the besiegers.

Here it was in this ancient interesting city that our friend was born on the sixth day of October, 1816.  It was in the locality known as “The Friar’s Gate,” in the suburbs of the city where he “first saw the light,” a part which contained a population as varied as wealth and poverty, virtue and vice, learning and ignorance could make it.  Mr. Maylard has thus described it—“As you entered the neighbourhood from the city, there was a row of genteel looking houses on the left hand.  At the end of these, a row of cottages, eight in number.  Under the second cottage was a narrow passage which led through the gardens of the front cottages to another row of poorer looking ones in the rear.  In one of these cottages I was born.”  Thus amid humble circumstances our friend commenced his earthly career.  In the neighbourhood were a mansion and other residences of pretentious appearance, but the majority of the dwelling houses were poor and inconvenient.  The environments of the youth often play an important part in the making of the man.  The marked and striking characteristics of Mr. Maylard owe something to the circumstances of his youth.  They were independent, varied, rugged and original.  He so cultivated his intellectual and social parts that he could associate with any company.  He was equally at home with the rich as the poor.  It mattered not whether he entered the mansion or the hut.  Both the educated and the ignorant found in him stimulus and sympathy.  Like the great apostle he made himself all things to all men, for the same reason, that he “might by all means save some.”

The people amongst whom his early days were spent were as varied as his physical surroundings.  Of them, he says, “they formed an amalgamation of wealth and poverty; and yet, though so closely associated, the caste and class distinctions were rigid, sharp, and severe.”  Alas! That humanity should be divided into classes, that hearts made to beat in unison, and souls to blend in sympathy, should be severed by degrees of paltry wealth, but so it is, and while selfishness is the ruling principle of humanity, distinctions and divisions will remain and lessen the happiness of the human race by keeping asunder souls capable of increasing each other’s stock of knowledge by an exchange of thought, sympathy, and affection.  The best antidote for the evil of these distinctions is the cross of Christ, that hallowed spot where the rich and poor meet together, there the oneness of sacrifice levels all distinctions, there the poor are raised from the dust and the proud are abased, there God alone is exalted, and from Him and the great blessings there obtained flow those holy sentiments of charity and brotherly kindness which create a universal brotherhood.  Hail, happy day, when men will regard each other as brothers.  That time, however is not yet, and in the earlier days of John Maylard was further from realization than now.  He belonged to the humbler and poorer class and with them he generally consorted.  Most of them were wicked in the extreme, but some of them cultivated true piety and godliness.  I will cite one or two examples.  No names shall be given, but for the sake of distinction letters shall be used.  Mr. A. a bargeman, occupied at one time apartments in his father’s house.  His life was one of extraordinary wickedness and his children were profligate.  He was a drunkard, and as drunkenness prepares the heart for all uncleanness his conduct was of that low degraded character which is the mark of those who live after the flesh.  He was grossly ignorant of everything religious, and brutally cruel in his temper.  He was frequently absent from home on voyages down the Wye to Wilton, Lydbrook, and Chepstow.  On his return there was invariably a carousal with the money had earned during his absence.  The family suffered much poverty and endured many privations.  Mrs. A. was equally ignorant of divine things and indeed possessed but a small share of knowledge of any kind.  She was not so cruel and vicious as her husband, indeed, acts of kindness she sometimes did, proved that she had naturally an affectionate disposition and a disinterestedness of soul which might with a good education have made her an excellent woman.  The children without exception were extremely wicked.

Mr. B. who lived next door was a stout robust man, of extraordinary strength, and superior cunning.  He too had been a bargeman, but had relinquished that calling for another.  Such was his reputation for taking the things of others that if anything was lost in the neighbourhood, his house was generally the first to be searched.  Some of his children were trained in the same practices and suffered various punishments in consequence.  Mrs. B. on account of the violence of her temper was a terror to the children around.  Her conversation was so filthy and obscene that none courted her acquaintance but the lowest of the low.Mr. C. was a wheelwright, of quiet disposition, and one who cultivated love for God.  Being of a weakly constitution he died early, but such was the influences of his life that his children became the subjects of religious fervour, consequently they were better informed, better behaved, sought better company, and looked for higher things than the majority of the young people around.  Though Mr. C. and his family were superior in every respect to their neighbours and always ready to do good to any they could, they were despised and persecuted.  As a child this treatment of persons so good and ture often caused Mr. Maylard much surprise, but he soon learned that the antipathy manifested arose from the enmity of the carnal mind towards God.  Let it be said, however, for the encouragement of such as are similarly placed that God was with this family and sustained it in every conflict.  The father was a light in a dark place, and the rays of his exemplary conduct penetrated the gloom of that benighted locality, and it is known that more than one

Edited by - Sue on 14/05/2008 09:56:21 AM


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