Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Adam Clarke
LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE, LL.D., F.A.S.
ADAM CLARKE, from whose voluminous writings the selections in this
volume have been made, was born in the village of Moybeg, near
Colerain, in the north of Ireland. He informed me, a short time before his
death, that he had never been able to ascertain the year of his birth, his
mother asserting that he was born in 1760, while his father contended that
it was in 1763. Mr. John Clarke, Adam's father, was a person of very
respectable literary attainments; he was educated with a view to the
church, and studied successively at Edinburgh and Glasgow, where he
took his degree of A.M., and afterward entered a sizer of Trinity College,
Dublin, at a time when classical merit alone could gain such an
admission. He was of English extraction, and Mrs. Clarke of Scottish.
They had two sons and five daughters.
Adam was three years younger than his brother Tracy, and was by no
means a spoiled child. He was always corrected when he deserved it, and
was early inured to hardship. For this he was ever thankful, and used to
say, "My heavenly Father saw that I was likely to meet with many rude
blasts in journeying through life, and he prepared me in infancy for the lot
his providence destined for me; so that, through his mercy, I have been
enabled to carry a profitable childhood up to hoary hairs. He knew that I
must walk alone through life, and therefore set me on my feet right early,
that I might be prepared by long practice for the work I was appointed to
perform." When about five years of age, he took the small pox in the
natural way; but, though covered with pustules from head to foot, he was
in the habit of stealing away from his very warm bed, whenever an
opportunity presented itself, and running naked into the open air. By
adopting this "cool regimen," he had a merciful termination of the
disorder, and escaped without a single mark.