Richard Jukes, The Poet

Transcription of Sketch in the Primitive Methodist Magazine by Grapho

“A Servant of the most high God.”

We must confess to some little perplexity, with regard to where to fix our point of beginning in this proposed series of life-sketches. Our difficulty is not because of paucity; but because of the abundance of names. For Primitive Methodism is wealthy in the possession of worthy and honoured names. No chronological order will be maintained in our selection; nor shall we be limited to any district or locality in our choice, but we shall endeavour to compass the whole connexion’s length and breadth, to find our “representative men.”

Still, it seems to us the most natural and consistent thing to begin at least with some whose names cluster around our childhood, and which are like precious perfume wafted from the “classic regions” of our denomination's earlier decades to regale and to inspire even now.

And with these feelings we have set the name of Richard Jukes to commence with. And we have been constrained to do this for two reasons. Because he belongs to the first generation of our heroic forefathers, and because he is the first, or one of the first of our old warriors who came into my early life, and whose influences are entwined around one’s tender years.

Through the vista of the long years we see him still massive and princely in form. For our old sires, at least many of them, were built physically for the almost superhuman hardships and toilings of those beginning years of our Church’s history. We see him now - a kingly man, gentlemanly in bearing, filled with the sweetness of grace, abounding in wit and humour, amiability and cheerfulness, vivacity and tenderness, strength and sympathy, all beautifully blending in him. A man to lay a spell upon strongman, and to win a child’s heart alike.

He was born October 9th, 1804, at Clungunford, in Shropshire. His parents made no profession of religion, although they occasionally attended the Parish Church. His education was of a limited character, as may be judged by the times, the place, and the means of his parents. His father was a stone-mason, and, as was the custom, Richard while a lad was sent to work, and was intended to become like his father, a stonecutter.

And what he afterwards became was almost entirely the result of Divine grace quickening, and his own industry unfolding, his mental and moral powers. Nature had been generous with him. Powerfully made physically - intellectually his gifts were of no ordinary sort, while morally he was healthy, vigorous and tender.

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Even as a youth there were prophecies in him of commanding power. Among the lads of the village he towered and became leader. And to them he was a paragon of wisdom and might.

Next to birth, conversion is the most important event in a man’s life. And we are not sure that we are exactly correct in giving birth the premier importance. For better never to have been born than to have never undergone the change which makes the natural man a spiritual one. When the man:- “Out of self to love be led, And to Heaven acclimated, Until all things sweet and good Seem his natural habitude.”

Richard Juke’s first religious impressions may be traced to the remark of a fellow workman who one day said to him, “Richard, the peace of God passeth understanding.” And the strangeness of this circumstance is, that the man who so spoke was himself a backslider. The remark, however, was like the word, “fitly spoken,” or the “nail driven in a sure place.” It was the beginning of reflection, and the result soon after was dedication to God. In the year 1825 some of our missionaries visited Clungunford. Richard Jukes was one of the first converts. The simplicity and reality of his conversion are expressed in his own words! - “Twas in a cottage near a wood I was convinced of sin, And there my race for endless life Through mercy did begin. ’Twas there I heard those cheering words, ‘Thy sins are all forgiven!’ And there I joined the little band, Whose names are penned in heaven. And when I reach ‘The Better Land,’ And stand on Zion’s hill, The humble cottage near the wood Will be remembered still."

Almost simultaneous with his conversion was his call to service. His gifts were soon recognised, and in those early days labourers were needed, and the converts caught the contagious and consuming passion for usefulness which so marked that time, that a short and quick process of preparation was often witnessed. The Lord’s workmen cannot be too well equipped, and they should grudge no time and expenditure to become accoutred. However, the demand for labour sometimes justifies the employment of less skilled men, and pressing hours often make less expert and experienced hands not only necessary, but acceptable.

At the September Quarterly Meeting, 1825, the year of his conversion, he was put on the plan as an exhorter. For nearly two years he worked as a stonemason for six days in the week, and on the Sabbath set out for a journey of ten, twenty, or more of miles, preached twice or thrice, perhaps, lead a class or two, with an open-air service between, arriving home on Monday morning to snatch a short sleep before beginning the week’s work for a living.

2 Methodism can never imagine, nor sufficiently appreciate what it owes to its honoured “locals.” They belong to the circuit’s ministry - supplement and co-operate with the minister, and fill up that which he lacks in opportunity and time, and share in his aims and successes. At the December of 1826, Richard Jukes became one of the ministers of his native circuit, which was then known as the Hopton Bank Circuit. The circuit was very extensive, his labours were prodigious, and his success remarkable. The humility and zeal, devotedness and urbanity, labours and character of the young preacher, impressed the people, so that his friends increased, the congregations multiplied, societies were formed, houses were opened in several new districts for preaching, and for eighteen months the good news of salvation spread like a prairie fire among the people of the Radnorshire hills.

In July, 1828, he went to the Brinkworth circuit. Here, amid many difficulties and much persecution, new places were missioned and old ones revived. “The circuit was flooded with a divine, revivalistic, soul-saving and sanctifying influence.” In 1830 he removed to Pillawell circuit. In 1831 he was stationed at Salisbury circuit. In 1833 he went to . From Birmingham he removed to Nottingham. In 1834 he was labouring in the Ramsor circuit. In 1838 he went to the circuit. In 1842 he removed to Tunstall circuit. His next station was Congleton. In 1846 he began to labour in the circuit. ln 1849 he was re-stationed in the Darlaston circuit. In 1851 he removed to the circuit. In 1853 he went to . In 1855 he went to . This was his last station. Here he was superannuated, and lived till August, 1867, when the tired workman passed into rest.

The above hurried outline of the places and years of his labours will soon be read; but what imagination can fill in the varied labours, sufferings, and sometimes privations involved? Most of the circuits were very extensive, the people poor, which often meant long journeys on foot and scanty food. In some places strong opposition and insults were experienced, as the message was carried to new localities. But Richard Jukes was a man with a purpose, and he was not easily deterred nor discouraged, and he succeeded where many would have failed. Apostolic were his labours, both with regard to the spirit in which he toiled and the prosperity which almost everywhere followed his ministry. In Darlaston he laboured from 1849 to 1851, and during these two years there was an increase of four hundred and twenty-four members. During his three years’ ministry at Dudley - 1846-1849 - the increase of members was four hundred and eighty-five. Space forbids us following him into other spheres; enough to say he was the same fervent soul and the same soul-saving workman throughout. His own words describe him and the secret of his marvellous ministry better than any words of mine:- “You ask my occupation, A soldier I reply, A shepherd and a watchman; Sometimes to preach I try. No matter what my station, My object still is one - To glorify my Maker, Through Jesus Christ, His Son.”

An old Writer has said “a good man is four square.” And in Mr. Jukes this was realized. There were the nicely-balanced blendings of nature and grace, the physical and the mental, the moral and the spiritual, in beautiful equipoise. His teaching was with power. He was “an able minister of the New

3 Testament,” peaceful, kindly, and commanding in all his official relations. The secret of his character as a man, and his power as a minister we find in his own words:- “I place no trust in any human creed, Nor pin my faith on what a man may read; The Saviour did himself for sin atone, None else can give the soul a heavenly throne. I’ll plead His Blood with my expiring breath, Be this my joy in life, my hope in death.”

We have ventured to call Mr. Jukes a poet. Not that we claim for him a place among the masters of immortal song. It would be foolish to compare his muse with the romantic and visionary genius of Spenser, the dramatic versatility of Shakespeare, the magnificent sublimity of Milton, or even the more ordinary effusions of Cowper, Pollock, Young and others. Neither do we presume to rank him with such hymn-writers as Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Toplady, and others we need not mention. But if, as Hazlitt says, “Poetry is the language of the imagination, and the passions, - the universal language which the heart holds with nature, life, and itself. Whenever there is a sense of-beauty or power or harmony, there is poetry. It is that fine particle within us that expands, rarefies, refines, raises our whole being. It is the high-wrought, enthusiasm of fancy and feeling. The poet describes what other men think and act;” then Mr, Jukes was a poet. He lacked the tastes and learning of studious habits; he was not read in historic and classic lore, and his verse reveals no laboured and ambitious style. “He made songs as milk for babies.” He was really the poet for the times, and the people among whom he laboured. The times were burning with religious enthusiasm, and the people were plain and sometimes rough folks, and his productions interpreted their experiences, touched chords in their hearts, and became a vehicle of praise and a channel of expression to tens of thousands. It was a saying of a great man “Let me make the ballads of a people, and I care not who makes their laws.” And in so speaking he was only expressing the immense power of song. What Castillo did morally for the dales of Yorkshire, what Waugh did socially for the mill hands of Lancashire, what Wesley did spiritually for the Methodist people, Mr. Jukes did for Primitive Methodism fifty and sixty years ago.

In those days he wrote recitations for the school anniversaries such as “The Gospel Chariot,” “ The Primitive Methodist Clock,” “The Wheat and the Chaff,” and others, which added great interest at those times, and have been much used since at school anniversaries and other occasions. He also wrote a sacred drama entitled “Joseph and his Brethren,” which was produced in character throughout the length of Staffordshire, to the severe criticism of some, but to the immense delight of thousands, wherever performed. It is, however, by his hymns that he is best known and will be longest remembered. And his humble strains have been the means of the conversion of multitudes. The “Wesleyan Times” in a review of a volume of his verse says. “Here is a considerable number of hymns with which we have been familiar for years; but never before knew to whom we were indebted for hymns of the most cheering and spirit-stirring character.”

In the forge, factory, mines, and homes Juke’s hymns in those days were the favourites of multitudes. From the Midlands, where Mr. Jukes mostly laboured, their influence spread through the counties of England, to America, and the Colonies. So full of the revival, earnest, devout and experimental spirit, they caught the hearts of tens of thousands, who may have never heard their author’s name. What Mr. Sankey's hymns have done for the whole of Christendom of late years, the hymns of Richard Jukes did for our church, and others, half a century ago.

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Many an earnest Evangelist has gone to his work singing:- “I’m a recruiting officer, Commissioned from on high; I’m one of the great army Which does in Zion lie. I’m come enlisting soldiers, To fight the daring foe; Then come, enlist, and with me sing I’m bound for to go.

We’re wanting men for every rank To serve the Prince of Peace, Whose orders have been issued out, The army to increase; Some have to stay and mind the stuff And others chase the foe; Then come, enlist, and with me sing I’m bound for to go.”

Thousands have been arrested in their evil courses and drawn to the Saviour, while his hymn appealed, sung as the old men, and women sounded it out:- “Come, sinners, see him lifted up, On the cross; He drinks for you the bitter cup, On the cross; The rocks do rend, the mountains quake. The earth does to its centre shake, While Jesus does atonement make, On the cross.”

As the invitation of mercy has been sung, in the class meetings thousands have been blest - in the open-air missions - in the prayer-meeting, and revival services, multitudes have felt the Divine persuasion moving their souls. - “We are travelling home to heaven above. Will you go? To sing the Saviour’s dying love, Will you go‘? Make up your mind, give God your heart, With every sin and idol part And now for glory make a start, Will you go?”

And the host is beyond numbering of discouraged and wearied pilgrims who have been cheered, and inspirited as they have sung:- “There’s a better day, there’s a better day Coming on, Coming on,”

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And to many the burdens of earth have become suddenly light, and the gloom has disappeared as they have seen within the gates while singing:- “Beautiful things there are above, Beautiful seas of boundless love, Beautiful city with streets of gold, Beautiful scenes do ever unfold.”

He put songs into the lips of millions. “He had the happy art of turning sighs into songs, and sweetening the bitter cup of sorrow with a kind of poetic nectar.” He had learned much in the schools of hard and difficult work, and painful suffering, and he was thus ordained and prepared to be a teacher and succourer of many. His fast years were full of sufferings; but he was the same patient and beautiful spirit to the last, sustained and strengthened by a child’s trust in the Great Father’s love and presence. The end is best described in his own words:- “My earthly tent is falling, Yet here content I sing, O grave! where is thy victory? 0 death! where is thy sting? My friends for me are waiting, In realms of endless day, I hear their gentle voices whisper, ‘Come away ’ !

“I’m coming, I’m coming, To join your heavenly lay, I hear their gentle voices whisper, ‘Come away ”!

The singers voice sank in silence, but his songs sing on. Many a year ago he joined the “invisible choir,” but in passing he left a legacy of holy memories to many of us, and stirring hymns which thousands will not fail to preserve for along while yet. What he wrote of others, of himself it may be said;— “God buries now his workmen here, And yet his work goes on, And Will, when those who still survive, To their reward are gone. ______References Primitive Methodist Magazine 1903/67

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