a considerable distance from any important manufacturing town, they maintained through life a reputation for rigid honesty. This, in a somewhat extended sense, at that tim,e and in such a place, appears to have been well nigh the highest excellence aimed at, at least outside the parsonage, if not a little further. Religious excellence must have been a rare gem in a population so circumstanced. Even within the memory of the writer, the village has had a notoriety for wild revelry and brutal pastimes, unrivalled for many miles round. Happily, religion and general enlightenment have penetrated this-among the dark places of the earth and saved the growing-up generation from many of the destructive influences that threatened the character and destiny of the youth of a former age.

During the time my mother lived with her parents, neither of them made any pretensions to piety. There was some provision in the neighbourhood for education-provision which, if well managed and duly appreciated, would have secured to the children advantages wanting very generally at that time to many places of far greater pretensions. Education was not felt to be a want of the child's nature. It was lightly valued, and little sought for. After probably a desultory attendance at school, mother had to leave, while yet a child, the home of her childhood. She must have been but slightly equipped for the contentions of life. She had learned the lesson necessity so commonly teaches to industrious honesty, that

he who will not work shall not eat," a doctrine on which she felt it no disgrace to rely to the end of life. Nor can we think her early removal from home influence an unmixed evil; a kind Providence probably linked it with her everlasting safety and happiness. The thick darkness of the place and time had been penetrated by the restless activity of Methodism. There lived in the neighbourhood a Methodist local preacher, known over a considerable district of surrounding country as a plain, fearless preacher of righteousness. An exemplary life gave point and emphasis to his preaching. Even those confirmed and reckless in wickedness would instinctively shudder at the barbed rebuke with which the good man would quietly accost them, and at once abandon for the time their forbidden pursuit in sheer

terror at his warning. Into the household of this servant of Christ mother entered when she left the parental roof. There she continued sufficiently long to appreciate the character of the man, and to imbibe impressions favourable to a religious life and character. At a later period, when nothing but the deeply impressed and permanent would be likely to force itself to prominence in the memory, she usually spoke of this period of her life with something like reverence.

The circumstances by which she was subsequently surrounded appear to have been less propitious. She removed to Cheadle, a little town two or three miles distant from the place of her birth, and the next market town. Here she passed the whole of her after life. Whatever part religious recollections may have acted at this time, there was no decided change in her spiritual condition for a number of years after. In obedience to custom and other influences, she attended the Established Church of the town. Half a century ago, the church seems to have been remarkably successful in rural districts in inculcating the doctrine that the country parson was a sacred person, in whose presence every good Christian was bound to touch his hat, and tender his humble submission. Beyond this her religious influence was sufficiently limited.

There is doubtless in her services much that is beautiful and interesting, much that might be really captivating, when devoutly administered, were it not that a wearisome prolixity and frequent repetitions might have been contrived by the legislature to spoil the whole. A still greater hindrance, and one more prevalent then than now, and now in small towns with a scattered population than in our populous manufacturing districts, was the absence of all heart in the preaching of the gospel, and the conducting of devotion. It is no wonder that religion should be so sickly and power

less when shorn of so much of her beauty and strength. Then there are everywhere plenty of attractions to share with her the attention of youth. While religion is robbed of some of the prime elements of her strength, too often, in fact, dwarfed and maimed by the sloth or incompetency, or worse faults, of its appointed guardians and exponents, these counterattractions are elaborated with the ut

most industry and skill. That the truth is everyway fitted for the conflict, we are assured on high authority. Where, however, she vies successfully with the blandishments of life, she needs the aid of a much more impassioned oratory, or other more auspicious circumstances, than what attended the weekly services in the old parish church of Cheadle. In the present instance the understanding was left unenlightened, and the religious emotions untouched. This customary attendance was ever spoken of in after life as a series of cold, unprofitable ceremonies. As it had left no green spot in the past on which memory delighted to linger, so it had awakened no visions of future honour and blessedness, by which for a time hope might be transported above the gay or serious trifles of mortal life.

Years of change and trial passed away before religion was presented to mother's view in any of its own loveliness. She had married, and had become the mother of two sons. Though this was the extent of her family, she had a world of tribulation to pass through. It would have been a great blessing to her, during these years of care and trouble, could she have looked up for support and consolation to an all-compassionate Father. But she had not learned to cast her care on him. Yet she never despised religion. In spite of circumstances very discouraging and difficulties not easily surmounted, she evinced a fond mother's concern for the higher interests of her children, by sending them regularly at an early age to a Sunday school. Though not very regular in her own attendance on public worship, she was scrupulously punctual in sending her boys to school, and in requiring their subsequent attendance at the service in the chapel. We know not what were her feelings at this time with respect to her own relationship to God and to the redemption by Christ, but she was evidently anxious that her children should not so long neglect the blessings of which she may have now begun to feel her own destitution. She was pleased to listen to any expression of their interest in religious exercises. Delight, possibly mingled with hope, gleamed in her eye as she listened to their account of the service, and heard one of them childishly exclaim"Mother, I should so like to be a preacher when I become a man." This

concern for the welfare of her children probably inclined her to attend more regularly the preaching of the Gospel. The same cause may have combined with early recollections to turn her attention to Methodist ministrations, in preference to those of the parish church, which, as we have seen, she attended to little purpose in her younger days. Subsequently she became a much more regular hearer, but a hearer, now, of the Methodist New Connexion. It was no question of polity that first determined her preference for the New Connexion. used to say she liked the preaching at Zion (the name of the chapel) better than that at the Wesleyan chapel. She thought the preachers better qualified and more efficient; an opinion which she did not relinquish after she saw further reasons for preferring the New to the Old Methodists, as they were commonly called there.

She

From this time she became more anxious about her own personal interest in the Saviour. Religious services were held at that time in different parts of the town. These she attended, as she had opportunity, in addition to the ordinary services in the chapel. She began to see and feel the necessity of a full surrender of heart and life to that Saviour whose love and redemption she now earnestly desired. Religious exercises became to her a source of pleasure. The promises of the gospel excited her hopes. She began to appreciate more fully the loveliness of the Christian life, and to aspire, though with trembling step, to an appropriation of the comforts which it insures. She diligently improved her opportunities of extending and correcting her knowledge of religious truth and duty. Often was the loneliness of long evenings enlivened, and the weariness of toil forgotten, in her communings with the spirits of heaven as they still speak in the sacred page. Many a time when she has thought us fast asleep in bed, we have lain and listened to her reading aloud the records of her Father's love, for her own comfort and support. Long years passed before we could comprehend the purport of all this, but its results were gradually and surely being wrought into her spiritual nature, and developed in her conduct. She sought a closer connection with the church-she wished to become a member. Attendance on week-night services, whether class meetings or the

more public gatherings, seemed to clash with the claims of business. She had fears within, and these conjured up foes without. But she resolved to conquer her fears and grapple with every difficulty. She persevered. Religious concerns were attended to, and business was left for the time to take care of itself. An earnest purpose overcame every obstacle. She sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and found therein true wisdom and all needful good.

From the time of her connection with the church she was steady and constant in her regard to the requirements of her profession. At intervals, during her early religious history, she was much harassed by fears that all might not be right with respect to her experience and prospects. Revival services were being held from time to time. Some of the friends entered more heartily into these than her own feelings seemed to herself to warrant her in doing.

In my mother fear prevailed for a time over her better judgment. Her mind was agitated and distressed by anxieties which wiser counsels would have dispelled. She was disturbed by doubts as to the genuineness of her conversion, and the certainty of her personal interest in the mercy of God, through the redemption of Christdoubts the offspring of indiscretion in others. Influenced, probably more than she was aware, by the injudicious representations of those who ought to know better before assuming the responsibility of guiding the anxious inquirer-she would have hailed some of those terrors which sometimes shake the sturdy sinner out of his perilous slumbers, as at least a more satisfactory evidence of the reality of her repentance. She did not then see that an all-compassionate Father can have no pleasure in such soul writhings. When necessary, mercy itself will not shrink from opening wide the eye of guilt to a view of its terrible enormity and danger. But it is no less true that the Saviour delights to be gracious. He would rather win the wanderer from his estrangement by exhibitions of forgiving love-by the exercise of a soul-melting goodness, than to frighten him into the path of safety, by a display of horrors which might torture some minds to distraction.

In mother's mind confidence and

peace gradually took the place of fear and disquietude. She learned to look on the way in which she had been brought to enjoy the comforts of the gospel with gratitude rather than regret. She knew her repentance to be sincere; and felt assured that the fruits of the Spirit realized in the heart, and witnessed in the life and conversation, were evidences more satisfactory to herself, and far more convincing to others, that she had really become a new creature in Christ Jesus, than any appeal to fearful strugglings and alarming horrors. She cast off all anxiety to know the moment of time and the spot of earth which witnessed her adoption into the family of God, and became only concerned to have completed what she was conscious had been begun, but what she was no less conscious was far from perfected. As she advanced, she learned to look on Christian character as much less related to particular times and special occasions. Spiritual life is a good seed," containing the germ of all excellence and bliss. Even where it is not choked by care, or crushed by violence, it is usually stinted in its growth in this world. In a happier soil, and under more genial influences, it is destined to a fuller growth and a more complete development of its goodly proportions. In its completeness it cannot be compressed into a moment, nor fastened to any square foot of earth.

From this time mother's correspondence with the writer, whom the requirements of business had placed at some distance from home, was full of earnest breathings after spiritual advancement. She was ever deploring her own unworthiness, yet seldom failed to look beyond that to the sinner's only hope. The progress of the gospel, especially in the churches of the New Connexion, deeply interested her. For the religious welfare of her own family she was especially anxious. Her letters were full of ejaculations for the salvation of those whom she especially loved. Any evidence on their part of a deepened interest in religion was eagerly seized and joyfully acknowledged. She cheerfully bore the cross, and made painful sacrificesknown in their full extent only in heaven-to promote their everlasting welfare. She could not obtrude her experiences on others, but she fearlessly avowed her allegiance to the Saviour in circumstances not a little trying.

We now approach an event burdened with sorrows for the whole of her future life. For a number of years she had been enjoying constantly increasing domestic happiness. Religion had long hallowed and intensified that happiness. Maternal solicitude had issued in the realization of comfort and satisfaction. Her earnest prayers as a mother and a wife were being answered, and her most cherished hopes blooming into enjoyment. The future seemed to stretch before her a prospect of happiness which, at one time, she could hardly have anticipated. But, alas! how soon may the brightest prospect be blasted! How easily is the cup of happiness dashed from the lip! It is truly said that the troubles of life are magnified and multiplied by our own forebodings. It is no less true, and more consolatory to think, that the pleasures of anticipation greatly increase the aggregate of human happiness; and though from this, in individual instances, heavy deductions must be made for the bitterness of disappointment, yet humanity is infinitely the gainer in the sum of its joys by the pleasures of hope. The death of my father, deeply afflicting to many, proved a most disastrous affliction to her of whom we are writing. This occurred in March, 1848. Many of the circumstances attending it were such as to aggravate the bereavement and intensify the sorrow it occasioned. A man of noble figure, regular in his habits, possessed of many excellent qualities of mind and heart, which had been acquiring for many years a happier development, he was struck down at a moment when everything about him gave promise of a long and happy life. Struck down he was-felledto say he died conveys no idea of the process with very little warning to his friends, and, to all appearances, with still less to himself of the near approach of death. Mother's distress was fearfully increased by the conviction, shared by many, that the disease under which he sunk, had it not been prevented, would have succumbed to a becoming care on the part of his medical attendant. This thought was a sore affliction to her through the rest of life. It seemed to her to remove the event out of the ordinary dispensations of Providence, to make it an infliction of human folly rather than a merciful though severe appointment of unerring

Still

wisdom. For a long time she was inconsolable under her bereavement. Years passed away, and grief was shattering her system. She had still living, and living with her, a mother, for whom she was ready to do and suffer anything which affection could prompt. She had her sons, for whom she would not have spared her life if needed. These she declared were the only comfort this world could now afford. her loss was her ever-present thought. In religion she found a safe anchorage for her hopes. She knew that in heaven she had a Father all-wise and good, and of unfailing compassions: on his faithfulness and love she rested. In her deepest distresses she looked with confidence to the ultimate issues of her trials; but she failed sufficiently to bring the consolations of religion to bear on her present troubles. Her affection seemed as if it would not be satisfied without the sacrifice of health and joy, and even life itself. The cares of business, while diverting her mind somewhat from the settled sorrow of her life, added other sources of trial. These she might have avoided in part, or at least have given up long before her death. No persuasion would have moved her to it. A love of independence made her unwilling to accept exemption from her cares, even from those for whom she counted not her life dear to herself. She had long managed her own, and she still wished to have her own to manage.

(To be concluded in our next.)

ELIZABETH MARY DAVID. THE subject of the following brief memoir was born in Guernsey, on the 9th of August, 1832. From her childhood she had been accustomed to attend our place of worship, and grew up in life under those restraining and corrective influences which are exerted upon our fallen nature by the word of God and prayer. When about five or six years of age, she entered the Sabbath school, and after attending seven years as a learner, she was employed as a teacher. In this good work she took much pleasure, and was very regular in her attendance till laid aside by affliction. Her early associations and friendships were thus connected with religious institutions, and she learned to love the house of God. Her attachment to Zion, and her zeal for its material interests, were evinced by the active part she took in serv

ing them. She made herself very useful as a collector for our missions; and was one of those who, with a willing mind and a ready hand, contribute their efforts in aid of the annual bazaar connected with our society, the object of which is the support of religious institutions, and the spread of the gospel in the world. In these labours she earnestly and honourably exerted herself for ten years. Her moral character and conduct were without reproach; and we cannot but believe that her mind was aware of her still higher obligations to live a truly religious life, and would sometimes, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, aspire after the saving knowledge of God and of Christ. Her serious convictions of the necessity of this saving work of grace within her were sometimes expressed; as she acknowledged her fears that she was not doing her duty to the children she instructed in the Sabbath school. She justly considered that a teacher should labour chiefly to form the hearts of the children in the Christian mould, and should lead them to the love of the Saviour. But how could she do this efficiently when her own heart was not fully given to Christ? Here was the source of her distressing anxiety.

And we are led to remark from her case, how easy it is for those who have been trained to attend the house of God from early life to continue in their attendance, and even to show considerable interest in seeking the outward prosperity of the church, while yet the heart is not given to God-the soul remains unconverted, a stranger to the living power and high enjoyments of true religion. It is a state of great peril.

It was not till the month of October, 1854, that she was induced fully to devote her life, with her whole heart, to God, and become a partaker of the blessedness of his true people. This important change was effected under the preaching of Mr. Booth, whose labours were, by the blessing of God, so extensively useful. From that time, till assailed by affliction, she kept a journal of her religious experience, and it is from her own observations, chiefly, that we learn the character of that experience from that time. She heard the first sermon preached by Mr. Booth in our chapel at Guernsey, on the 18th of October, 1854, and remarks: "I was affected by the sermon, but, as on for

mer occasions, not decided for God. The next evening she heard him preach on the doom of the righteous and the wicked. After speaking of this she adds, "and yet with all I have heard, I am still serving Satan; the Lord help me!" She heard him again on the Friday evening, on the ability and willingness of Christ to save sinners, and says, "I felt wretched on account of my sins, but yet undecided." On the Saturday evening she heard him give an address on sanctification, but still remained under the bondage of Satan. As she was walking home, Mr. Booth pointed out to her the simple plan of salvation, and encouraged her to seek the pardon of her sins.

The next morning being the Sabbath she attended the service, and she thus describes her feelings at that time:"I felt during the whole service as if my heart would break; I felt the load of my sins, and it was grievous to bear." In the afternoon she visited Mr. Watts, who before leaving home for the service in the evening engaged in prayer, and made her case matter of earnest petition at the throne of grace. "That prayer," she remarks, "prepared me for the duties of the evening." That evening her wretchedness continued great as ever, for she felt that if called away by death she was quite unprepared. After the sermon an invitation was given to such as were earnestly seeking the Saviour to go and kneel at the penitent form, and she writes, "I thank God that my pride was so far subdued as to let me go. I hope to praise God through time and in eternity that I did go; though I did not find peace that evening. I went home again wretched. Mr. Booth endeavoured to encourage me, and told me what to do; but I could not yet lay hold on the promise. I prayed, I passed a wretched, sleepless night. On the Monday morning I read and prayed; but still no peace. I was almost in despair. I made up my mind to go and speak with Mr. Booth, at his lodgings, and I am thankful I went. He and Mr. John Ozanne prayed with me; light was beginning to dawn upon my mind. He gave me a tract, entitled Sure of Heaven.' I feel as if I cannot be thankful enough to him for it. It was through reading that tract, and praying over it, that I was enabled fully to lay hold of the cross of Christ."

Then she found peace and joy;