In the Baptist Magazine for 1862 there is under the heading "Recent death" an obituary for Mr Robert Coles who had died at Winston Мill, Gloucestershire, on March 30, 1862. Coles was born in 1773 at Ailworth Farm, near Naunton, Gloucestershire. His parents, we read, "were regular attendants upon the ministry of the Rev Benjamin Beddome, MA, of Bourton-on-the-Water; and though they removed when their son Robert was about four years old, to Rowell farm, near Winchcomb, and seven miles from Bourton, yet their places in the accustomed sanctuary were always filled at the Sabbath morning services. 'The word of the Lord was precious in those days,' and the eminent gifts of Mr Beddome were not unappreciated by them; for seventy years afterwards their son could speak with vivid recollections of the outline of the sermon, which was regularly brought home by his father on the Sunday morning, to be the subject of meditation and conversation through the rest of the day."
It goes on to speak of his conversion and his later involvement and interest in the progress of the gospel in the village of Arlington. A miller by trade he was also a deacon and a godly man.
It says that the early seeds sown "were watered when he himself frequented the house of God where the venerable Beddome now trembling with age and feebleness sat in his pulpit to teach and exhort, and still loved to unite the hearts and voices of his people in the hymn which, Sabbath after Sabbath, embodied the preacher's deepest feelings on the subject of the morning's sermon. In after years the hallowed spot was rendered yet more interesting by his own brother the Rev Thomas Coles AM being called to the pastorate as successor of Mr Beddome, at the beginning of the present century. By his brother's hands he was solemnly immersed in the stream which flows through the beautiful village of Bourton and although residing at ten miles distance was accustomed to attend there at the monthly celebration of the Lord's supper."
It goes on to speak of his conversion and his later involvement and interest in the progress of the gospel in the village of Arlington. A miller by trade he was also a deacon and a godly man.
It says that the early seeds sown "were watered when he himself frequented the house of God where the venerable Beddome now trembling with age and feebleness sat in his pulpit to teach and exhort, and still loved to unite the hearts and voices of his people in the hymn which, Sabbath after Sabbath, embodied the preacher's deepest feelings on the subject of the morning's sermon. In after years the hallowed spot was rendered yet more interesting by his own brother the Rev Thomas Coles AM being called to the pastorate as successor of Mr Beddome, at the beginning of the present century. By his brother's hands he was solemnly immersed in the stream which flows through the beautiful village of Bourton and although residing at ten miles distance was accustomed to attend there at the monthly celebration of the Lord's supper."
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