Page:Our Hymns.djvu/199

 THEIK AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 179

JOHN BAKE WELL.

17211819.

JOHN BAKEWELL was born at Brailsford, in Derbyshire, in the year 1721. At about eighteen years of age he was converted, chiefly through reading &quot; Boston s Fourfold State.&quot; With the warmth of his early zeal, he began to preach the Gospel in his own neighbourhood in 1744. From this good work he was not deterred by the violent opposition he met with ; and at length, by the Divine blessing, he made converts and friends of some of his former opponents.

Afterwards he removed to London, where he became acquainted with the Wesleys, Toplady, Madan, and others. At one time he resided at Westminster, and at his house Thomas Olivers is said to have written his celebrated hymn,

&quot; The God of Abraham praise.&quot; No. 256.

For many years Mr. Bakewell carried on the Greenwich Royal Park Academy, and at his house he conducted a Wesleyan &quot; class,&quot; until the chapel was opened. There also he received the preachers. So early as 1749 he had been appointed a local preacher, and when he had given up his academy to his son-in-law, Dr. James Egan, and had in consequence more leisure, he used to go wherever the Wesleyan ministry was interrupted, to supply lack of service. His long life was one of eminent piety, devotedness, and usefulness. Three or four years before his death he removed from Greenwich to Lewisham, where he died in March, 1819, in the ninety-eighth year of his age. His tomb, in the City Road Chapel ground, near to that of Mr. Wesley, records that &quot; he adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour eighty years, and preached His glorious Gospel about seventy years.&quot;

Mr. Bakewell was the author of several hymns, and in the &quot; Methodist Magazine&quot; for July, 1816, there is a letter by him on brotherly love, written when he was more than ninety years

N 2

�� �