We have hitherto been tracing the work of the Evangelical clergy in remote country villages and in London.  We have now to turn to one whose most important work was done in a different sphere from either. Henry Venn (1724-1797) is chiefly known as the Vicar of Huddersfield, though he only held that post for twelve out of the seventy-three years of his life.  Like all the rest of the Evangelical clergy whom we have noticed, Venn was a connecting link between the Methodists and the Evangelicals proper.  Like Romaine, he belonged to Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion until the secession of 1781.  He was also in the habit of itinerating during the early part of his Evangelical ministry.  He was on the most intimate terms with the Wesleys and Whitefield, and thoroughly identified himself with their practical work.  But his son tells us in his most interesting biography that his views changed on this matter.  ‘Induced,’ he writes, ’by the hope of doing good, my father in certain instances preached in unconsecrated places.  But having acknowledged this, it becomes my pleasing duty to state that he was no advocate for irregularity in others; that when he afterwards considered it in its different bearings and connections, he lamented that he had given way to it, and restrained several other persons from such acts by the most cogent arguments.’[806] The dispute between Venn and John Wesley as to whether the Methodist preachers should be withdrawn from parishes where an Evangelical incumbent was appointed has been already noticed.

The career of Henry Venn is particularly interesting and important, because it shows us not only the points of contact between the Methodists and Evangelicals, but also their points of divergence.  In spite of his itinerancy and his strong sympathy with the Methodist leaders, Venn furnishes a more marked type of the rising Evangelical school than any whom we have yet noticed.  Apart from his literary work, it was as a parish priest rather than as an evangelist that Venn made his mark.  His preaching at Huddersfield was unquestionably most effective; but its effect was at least as much due to the great respect which he inspired, the disinterestedness of his whole life and work, the affectionate earnestness and sound practical sense of his counsel—­in short, to his pastoral efforts—­as to his mere oratory.  Again, the Calvinism of Henry Venn was distinctly that of the later Evangelical school rather than that of Whitefield and Romaine.  He was a Calvinist of precisely the same type as Newton, and Scott, and Cecil, and the two Milners.

His closing years were very calm and happy.  Worn out before his time in his Master’s work, he was obliged to exchange at the early age of forty-seven the harass of a large town parish for the quiet of a country village.  More than a quarter of a century he passed in the peaceful retirement of Yelling; but he was not idle.  He faithfully attended to his little parish, he trained up his family with admirable judgment in the principles of piety, and had the satisfaction of living to see his sons walking in his steps.  One of them, John, became the respected and useful rector of Clapham, to which place Henry Venn retired to die.  There are few names which are more highly esteemed among the Evangelical party than the honoured name of Venn.