as it will be seen hereafter, shed a chastened lustre over her later

years.

The character of the extracts in her common-place book, at this early period, shows that even then the mind was imbued with thoughtfulness, and that it set a high value upon truth; it is not beauty of composition only, which seems to have guided the selection, but this, united to moral and religious truth. To account for this early preference, it may be worth while to mention, that she always ascribed her first knowledge of virtue and religion to the instructions of a servant whom she believed to have been a truly pious woman, and who took pains to instruct her in the ways of wisdom. The seed was thus sown, and the soil prepared for that breath of the Holy Spirit, which awakened the slumbering spark of vitality, and developed its hidden energies. This strongly elucidates a position elsewhere maintained, that an impression once made upon the organ appointed for the manifestations of mind, is never entirely lost; and indicates, on the one hand, the importance of having pious servants around the young, that this impression may be in favour of the truth : and on the other, the danger arising from attendants of an opposite character, lest the indelible brand (indelible by human means) of vice should be implanted there, and should only sink the deeper, by every effort to disengage it from the surface.

Thus amiable in natural disposition-thus pre

pared by education-thus sedulously guarded and guided from the contact of debasing example, and thus disciplined by study, by the choice of books, and by society, the mind was ready to receive the whole truth, when promulgated in the church of Farnham, by that eminent servant of God, the Rev. W. Gunn. This event happened in the year 179091, and soon led to one of the most important circumstances of her life, viz. her separation from the Establishment.

Under Mr. Gunn's teaching, the subject of this memorial first learned to feel that she was a sinner, notwithstanding all the beauty of virtue, for which she had been so remarkable: she discovered her own inability to keep the commandments of God; she knew that a breach of these commandments involved the anger of a just and holy Being, and that she had nothing of her own to offer, whereby to appease that wrath, or propitiate his favour; but she was also taught, that a ransom had been provided; that God had revealed himself as reconciled to his offending children in the person of his dear Son; that Christ died to save repentant sinners, from the love, and power, and penalty of sin; that he died to redeem all those who would accept the offers of mercy, and who came to him in humility, disclaiming all righteousness of their own, and believing that he was able to save them entirely. Finally, she was taught that this believing (faith) was the gift of God, and that

it was promised to all those who waited upon him, in dependance upon his covenanted grace.

The attention having been fixed on this subject, she soon discovered a perfect coincidence between this scheme of doctrine, and that promulgated by the fathers of the church, and especially its reformers, in our truly beautiful and spiritual liturgy; but this very discovery served to make the contrast more glaring, between the preaching she had formerly been accustomed to hear, and that of Mr. Gunn. When the mind was led to consider the subject, and to distinguish between preaching which was coincident with the formularies of the church, and that which was opposed to them, the natural consequence was, a conviction of the truth of the former a deviation from truth in the latter; and a humble adoption of that form of doctrine which has been termed evangelical. And most truly evangelical it is; for it is this alone which can convey the glad tidings of salvation to perishing sinners, through the finished righteousness of a crucified Redeemer ! It was now, therefore, that Christ became her only hope, her all-satisfying portion, her pattern of perfect holiness and obedience to the law of God; whom she humbly, but earnestly strove to love, and serve, and imitate, to her life's end.

From this period may be dated the commencement of her spiritual public life: new views, and new duties opened before her; and she entered into them

with her whole heart; with all the energy of her natural character, and all the zeal of a new convert; -a zeal, which, though modified by time and other physical circumstances, and improved and guided by the subsequent development of judgment, still shed its glowing radiance over the evening of her days.

It pleased God to permit the removal of Mr. Gunn from the parish church of Farnham in 1792; and he left his sorrowing flock, hungering and thirsting after the bread and water of life, to the preaching of his successor, a minister of a very different character, and avowedly hostile to evangelical truth. The effect of this change may be easily appreciated; the pulpit and the desk no longer echoed the same doctrines this discrepancy was not felt, so long as ignorance had blinded the minds of the hearers, but now, that the veil had been taken away on the part of those who had received the truth of the gospel as it is revealed in Christ, a most painful chasm in the service was experienced. Those who had been accustomed to be fed with wholesome doctrine, keenly felt the privation arising from receiving in exchange a moral lesson; nay, more, they nauseated the poisonous fruits of erroneous notions. Those who had felt their need of a Saviour, and had received Him as their Lord and their Redeemer, could not be contented with the meritorious efficacy of good works, and with a system which exalted man's power to save himself, and depreciated, in a similar proportion, the

value of the only Saviour. It is not surprising, that the hungry souls of those who had been recently awakened to the awful realities of their situation, and who particularly felt the necessity of being taught and led into all truth, should be induced to consider whether any lawful means could be adopted, by which their souls' health might be maintained, and they themselves might be led to the fountains of living waters, where they might grow and flourish in the courts of the house of their God.

This consideration taking place in the minds of all those who had loved the doctrines of the cross, and now lamented their absence from the pulpit-a difference of opinion would immediately occur between them, as to the lawfulness of themselves seeking the means of supplying the acknowledged deficiency; a line of conduct which would involve the necessity of separating from the walls of the Established Church:neither is it for us their successors to sit in judgment, or to decide between those who conscientiously thought it right to separate themselves from the great congregation, in order that they might secure that preaching which they had been first taught to love within the revered pale of the established religion; and those who conscientiously thought the evils of dissent of so great magnitude, that they were bound rather to pray always, and to wait patiently for the restoration of sound doctrine to their own pulpit;-or those, who preferred steering a middle course, who conscientiously