ELDER JAMES IRELAND was born and raised in Scotland, until a man grown -- at which time providentially he removed to Virginia, and became a resident here. -- Serious reflections occupied his breast, and as he had a natural turn for poetry, he set about composing some verses, which were of so serious a nature, that upon perusing, and considering them, and the importance of what was contained in them, occasioned heavy distress to fall on his mind, and awful apprehensions of the ruined state to which sin had reduced him. Conviction for the sin of his nature, and the guilt contracted by the fall, together with the guilt of his actual transgressions, ran him into a state of almost desperation -- under this view of his state, he wandered from place to place, feeling himself justly condemned, until his bodily powers were much afflicted, and grief of mind with difficulty supported up under; under which he must have sunk, had not an omnipotent hand afforded relief: but at God's appointed time he was delivered of his burthen (burden), his guilt removed, and his desponding soul set at liberty -- clouds and darkness expelled, by the bright rising of the sun of righteousness -- soon after which he felt himself much impressed with a sense of the duty of preaching the gospel, and before he joined society he used at different times, to exercise his gifts publicly which were satisfactory to his hearers. About this time it appeared his duty to be baptized; he accordingly related his experience to a Baptist minister and was baptized -- soon after which he met with encouragement by the Baptist church, and he set forward as a minister of the gospel -- in which work he continued till death. His manner of preaching was very agreeable -- he was much of an orator - in good language and well chosen words he communicated his ideas -- he was close to his subject, and produced pertinent proofs to confirm the doctrines advanced -- his sermons were well calculated to feed the church of God with knowledge and understanding, being delivered with so much warmth, and filled with useful instruction. After nearly forty years' labor in the work of the ministry, he was removed by death, in the spring of the year 1806 -- and it is no wonder, that Zion trembled and felt her distress, when a pillar of this description fell -- but happy for him, an exchange of the transitory things of time, for an enduring substance above, a putting off this tabernacle, and putting on an house from heaven. ==================== [From The History of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 1766 - 1808, By William Fristoe, 1808, pp. 75-76. The grammar and spelling are unchanged. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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