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Every Morning doth he bring his judgement to light (Zeph iii. 5.) First Thoughts for First Hours

Price: £58 

Postage: £2.75

Year: 1889 1st edition
Author: Joseph Parker
Publisher: Charles Burnet & Co.
Brief Description: Scarce 1st edition from the English Non-conformist preacher
Quantity: Only ONE item in stock

Hardcover, no dustkacket, 1889 Ist edition published by Charles Burnet & Co, 280pp, spotting to prelims, brown endpapers, hinges strained but binding intact, no inscriptions, green cloth cover with gilt sunset to front, black lettering to spine & front, spine heavily sunned, wear to extremities, small tears to cloth at top & base of spine, generally a sound copy of this scarce 1st edition.

Joseph Parker (9 April 1830 - 28 November 1902) was an English Nonconformist divine.

Born in Hexham, Northumberland, Parker was the son of Teasdale Parker, a stone mason, and Elizabeth, née Dodd. He managed to pick up a fair education, which in after-life he constantly supplemented. In the revolutionary years from 1845 to 1850 young Parker as a local preacher and temperance orator gained a reputation for vigorous utterance. He was influenced by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, and Edward Miall, the Liberationist, and was much associated with Joseph Cowen, afterwards MP for Newcastle upon Tyne.

At the time, he was wooing a local girl - Ann Nesbitt, daughter of William Nesbitt, a farmer of Horsley-on-Tyne. He referred to her as "Annie, the soul I loved, the girl that saved me, and made me a man". Horsley was about ten miles from Hexham, and he became acquainted with the Nesbitts through his preaching there, and Mr Nesbitt, a trustee and deacon of Horsley Congregational Church was especially interested in the young preacher, who, on Sunday nights, brought them the news of the town and slept in a "snug little chamber" in the old farmhouse.

Ann and Joseph were married on November 15 1851 in Hexham Congregational Church, though Joseph was only twenty-one years old, and they had twelve years' happy married life - consisting of six months in Hexham, a year or two in London, five years in Banbury, and five in Manchester - until Ann died in 1863. However, when Hexham Congregational Church was rebuilt, Dr. Parker presented a beautiful stained glass window, bearing the following inscription: "In ever loving memory of Ann Nesbitt, for twelve years the devoted wife of Joseph Parker, Minister of the City Temple, London, this window is reverently and gratefully erected by the man whose life she did so much to mould". The pulpit of grained oak was given at the same time and was inscribed: "In grateful memory of William Nesbitt of Horsley Hills, to whom the Church herein assembling is deeply indebted for long-continued and invaluable service, this pulpit is affectionately erected by his son-in-law Joseph Parker."

In the spring of 1852 he wrote to Dr John Campbell, minister of Whitefield Tabernacle, Moorfields, London, for advice as to entering the Congregational ministry, and after a short probation he became Campbell's assistant. He also attended lectures in logic and philosophy at University College London. From 1853 to 1858 he was pastor at Banbury. His next charge was at Cavendish Street, Manchester, where he rapidly made himself felt as a power in English Nonconformity. While here he published a volume of lectures entitled Church Questions, and, anonymously, Ecce Deus (1868), a work provoked by Seeley's Ecce Homo. The University of Chicago conferred on him the degree of D.D.

In 1869 he returned to London as minister of the Poultry church, founded by Thomas Goodwin. Almost at once he began the scheme which resulted in the erection of the great City Temple in Holborn Viaduct. It cost £70,000, and was opened on 19 May 1874. From this centre his influence spread far and wide. His stimulating and original sermons, with their notable leaning towards the use of a racy vernacular, made him one of the best known personalities of his time. Dr Parker was twice chairman of the London Congregational Board and twice of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. The death of his second wife, Emma, née Common, in 1899, was a blow from which he never fully recovered.

Parker was pre-eminently a preacher, and his published works are chiefly sermons and expositions, chief among them being City Temple Sermons (1869-1870) and The People's Bible, in 25 vols (1885-1895). Other volumes include the autobiagraphical Springdale Abbey (1869), The Inner Life of Christ (1881), Apostolic Life (1884), Tyne Chylde: My Life and Teaching (1883; new ed., 1889), A Preacher's Life (1899).

Joseph Parker. (2009, June 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:14, June 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Parker&oldid=294133793