CITY-ROAD MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1876.

MEMORIAL SKETCH OF SERGEANT ISAAC PYKE, OF CATCOTT, BRIDGEWATER.

BY THE REV. JOHN WALTER.

THE links which connect us with the first race of Methodists are fast disappearing. Are there any now living who ever heard the Father of Methodism? or had his hand laid in blessing on their heads? SERGEANT ISAAC PYKE was wont to claim the honour of being once in his presence. His father, who was led to God through Mr. Wesley's ministry, held him in his arms during Mr. Wesley's last service at Taunton. Mr. Pyke, senior, was a steward in the house of Mr. Lindon, of Weston-Zoyland, where Mr. Wesley stayed during his visits to Middlesey, or Middlezoy, which he visited as early as 1746. In August, 1768, he writes:-" Monday, 22nd. I rode through impetuous rain to Weston [-Zoyland], a village near Bridgewater. A while ago the people here were lions, but now they are become lambs." Mr. Pyke, senior, was one of those "lambs."

During the visits of Mr. Wesley to Weston-Zoyland and Middlezoy, Mr. Pyke had the privilege of waiting on him; which he used to speak of as the greatest honour of his life. After a term of faithful service, he married a godly-minded woman, and settled at Creech St. Michael, Taunton; where, in 1788, the subject of this Memoir was born. Mr. Pyke and his wife lived to a good old age, and were not long separated. As they lived they died, "in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost."

We know but little of the childhood of Isaac Pyke. In early youth he was received into the family in which his father had lived. He was naturally very vivacious, and fond of frolic, yet bold and resolute, fearless of everything but sin. The restraining influences of which he was conscious he attributed to the watchful solicitude of his parents, the power of his father's prayers and the warnings which he had received. At the age of seventeen, he entered the army in the 13th Regiment of Light Infantry. At once he declared himself a Methodist; a declaration which in those days brought the soldier no small contempt and petty persecution from all ranks in the army. But scorn could not move him to forswear the Church of his father. He would often say, "What

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ever I have, I owe to Methodism in withholding me from sin. You may pillow me, but I shall still kneel before God morning and night. You may pour contempt on the Methodist, but I shall still attend the preachingroom and the prayer-meeting, when off duty."

Isaac Pyke was not the only young recruit who has had to endure indignities of this kind for the sake of Christ. From six years' intercourse with military men at Plymouth and Gosport, I find that at first an open avowal of religion subjects the young soldier to abuse and scathing satire, frequently accompanied by a nightly shower of boots and pillows on his head while he kneels before God. It requires great strength of purpose to be godly in the barrack-room, unless there are there godly veterans. But our young soldier maintained his position, returning good for evil. His blameless conduct, regular habits, and fixedness of purpose, soon distinguished him. A few months after he entered the army, he was made lance-corporal. Step by step he rose to be quartermaster-sergeant. He was made sergeant on the battle-field for an act of valour, in an engagement with the French in the West Indies. Only three of those whom he headed in the attack escaped. When he entered the service the army was not a gay pageant, a holiday review, but a stern reality. For six years and a half he was in the West Indies, and was present at the battles of Martinique and Guadaloupe. From the West Indies his corps was sent to Canada, where it remained two years and a half. While in America, he took part in the various actions against the United States in 1812. These engagements he felt more severely than any others, as he was fighting against a people of English origin, speaking the same language, and professing the same faith. "To-day," he writes, "we met the Yankees at Lacone Mills and routed them; but we were merciful when we could be just. It is painful to fight against your own countrymen."

In 1814, the regiment was ordered home, and was quartered successively in Jersey, Portsmouth, Bristol, and Carlisle. When stationed at Bristol, he became the drill-sergeant to the boys at Old Kingswood; by many of whom he is still remembered. In the year of his return to England he was deeply convinced of his need of a Saviour. For two years he drank of "the wormwood and the gall." When attending the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Williams, in Bristol, he found peace. Mr. Williams was preaching from Romans viii. 13: "Ye shall live." From that hour Isaac Pyke began to live; and never ceased to live the life which he now lives in its highest development.

In 1817, Sergeant Pyke entered the marriage state with one equally decided for God. For more than half a century she was his faithful companion, and closed his eyes at last. The War Office regulations in connection with the soldier's marriage was a subject which often occupied his attention. In common with thousands of steady and godly soldiers, he believed that the British public grievously sins against the

social, moral and spiritual well-being of the private soldier, by restricting his marriage. Only seven to ten per cent. in the infantry are allowed to marry. Regulations have been issued from the War Office, withholding the privileges allowed to married men, from all who shall marry before they have been seven years in the service. The moral tendency of this is most disastrous. The nation cuts the soldier off from the blessings of social life. Another subject on which Sergeant Pyke felt strongly, was the constant changes on Home Service, involving the married men in perpetual poverty, and the country, as he thought, in wasteful expense, and impairing the efficiency of the troops.

There were many other questions of military reform which occupied his thoughts, a view of which must be given to illustrate the character of the man: he thought that every well-conducted soldier should be allowed to marry; that sufficient accommodation should be provided for all married men, and military schools established for soldiers' sons, analogous to the training ships in the navy; * that the army might thus be raised to a great extent within the army, and the recruiting system be proportionately superseded; that the unoccupied government land at the military stations should be assigned to the married men for gardens, and the soldier's spare time be thereby occupied, away from the canteen and the public-house. These are questions which must force themselves on the public attention, and the sooner the better for the nation's honour and interest.

In 1821, he was ordered to India. Of this period he writes: "I was in the Burmese war of 1824 and 1825; fought hard; suffered hard; lived hard. I landed at Rangoon with eleven hundred men, and in sixteen months we could not muster two hundred and fifty. party on the 25th Dec., 1825. We had every yet out of all the Lord has brought me. How many miraculous escapes have I had, and answers to prayer!"

I commanded the storming fourth man killed or wounded;

His soul recoiled in after life from the horrors of war. He witnessed the massacre of a coloured regiment that had mutinied and murdered its officers; and the vengeance that was inflicted on a Burmese town that had seized a flag of truce, murdered and quartered the party, and suspended their mangled corpses from the boughs of trees. The soldiery, when they saw that their flag of truce had been dishonoured, their officers butchered, and their brothers in arms treated as dogs, were infuriated, and spared neither man, woman nor child, and reduced the town to ashes. In taking one of the Rangoon forts, a trench, twenty feet deep by forty in width, was nearly filled up with bodies of the slain and wounded, over which the victorious army passed. A friend writes: "When the British army advanced upon Rangoon, the Burmese were preparing to put to death the

* Sergeant Pyke's views on this point have happily since his time been carried out,-ED.

American Baptist missionaries; and Sergeant Pyke had the satisfaction of opening their prison doors, and bringing them out, with great joy." *

This war tried the spirit and patience of British soldiers of all ranks. They had to battle with a deadly climate; ford formidable rivers; march across swamps and through tangled jungles, with short rations, and those often very bad. Through these causes, the health of the army gave way. This was the case with Sergeant Pyke. During the whole of the sixteen months he was engaged in this war, he never lay down on a bed; and he had but one change of linen. His sleeping-place was the ground, often saturated with rain, and steaming like a vapour bath.

Sergeant Pyke devoted his spare time to the social and moral welfare of the men. On arriving in India, in 1821, he secured the use of a large room for religious exercises, where he met the men nightly. In this work he was at first greatly opposed by the chaplain, who said he would have no Dissenters in the garrison. The sergeant says: "I replied, 'We are not Dissenters, but Wesleyans.' He still kept putting me off till I told him I would report him to my commanding officer, if he did not allow the use of a room. This frightened him; in a few days there came a general order for two rooms to be made into one, and thirty-five rupees a month for expenses of lighting and cleaning. Afterwards he was as fond of me as of a brother. He appointed one morning in the week for our Class-meetings, and we were permitted to meet in his back parlour. He was a great friend to my wife while I was in Burmah. I believe when I left India he was a converted man."

Sergeant Pyke was made a great blessing to many of the men. Of the eight hundred and fifty men of his corps who fell in the sixteen months he trusted that many enjoyed true religion. Just before the attack at Rangoon, as many of them as could meet knelt together silently before God and commended their souls to Him, and he offered up prayer for the salvation of all who should fall in battle. On they went into the jaws of death, praying to Christ to save them from death eternal. Many of these brave men desired those who might survive the carnage to tell their mothers and other loved ones in their native land that they had hope in God, and had not forgotten them in the last hour of life.

Mr. White writes of his military life: "Under God he was made a blessing to the soldiers. He met with much opposition in the army, but like a good soldier of Jesus Christ,' he was

'Bold to take up, firm to sustain

The consecrated cross.' 999

He used the whole of his influence, from the time of his conversion, in

* For a thrilling account of this event, copied from the "New York Observer," see the "Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine" for 1825. Pp. 551-556,-ED.

the cause of Christ. He would rebuke sin in all ranks of the army when he could do so without infringing military regulations. Once when on parade he cast a look on one of the officers who was using profane language; instantly the officer cried out with evident sincerity, "Christ have mercy on me! I have been shot by the sergeant's eye." From that time the officer became a reformed man.

In August, 1826, Sergeant Pyke writes: "After many interpositions and providential deliverances I was discharged from H. M. 13th Light Infantry as quartermaster-sergeant, with a pension of two shillings a day, after serving in the regiment twenty-one years in different parts of the world. I settled at Catcott, August, 1826. I made it a matter of prayer years before I left the army that the Lord would cast my lot in some place where I might be useful; and be able to take in the Wesleyan preachers. And the Lord granted me my request." And greater courtesy and attention he never paid his superior officers than he gave to Christ's ministers. When quartered in Bristol he walked to Catcott to provide a home for the Wesleyan minister when visiting that place. When he went to settle there he found religion at the lowest ebb; and no voice raised against sin. The Sabbath was spent in cock-fighting, athletic sports and excessive drinking. He was instrumental, to a great extent, in putting down these demoralizing evils. He became the moral policeman of the village; pursuing the sinner to his haunts of vice. Mrs. M. A. Durston writes: "He was always ready to speak for his Master 'in season' and 'out of season.' He was very severe in reproving sin. He was jealous for God's honour."

In July, 1863, he wrote to Mr. Dowty of Bridgewater, "We have three cider-houses here. I have seen the clergyman; but he cannot aid me. I made it a matter of prayer to God. I was never afraid of the mouth of a cannon; and by the help of God I would face these men on Satan's own ground. I went to the worst house with a tract. One man

was reading a newspaper to the rest. I said, 'I am sorry to see that you are not at church this morning; but I will read a few verses to you.' I read 2 Peter iii. 10-12. I addressed the man of the house. I brought before them death, judgment, hell. I never had such power in my life. I showed the man and woman of the house their place at the bar of God; and all these men and their starving wives and children condemning them. I said, 'Men ensnare birds with bird-lime, and you catch souls for the devil.' I entreated them lovingly to turn to God."

The following letter addressed to a man in the midst of a riotous company, and read in their presence, will reveal the sergeant's character :

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'Catcott, May 29th, 1858.—Sir, I am sorry that you have so soon forgotten the dying words of your uncle. He said to you in my presence, 'Woe, woe, woe unto you, John, if your soul is lost!' How would you like to stand at the bar of God with your present company? They will be calling to the rocks and mountains to fall on