Personal Recollections Part 3

An Irish jig is interminable, so long as the party holds together; for when one of the dancers becomes fatigued, a fresh individual is ready to step into the vacated place quick as thought, so that the other does not pause, until in like manner obliged to give place to a successor. They continue footing it, and setting to one another, occasionally moving in a figure, and changing places with extraordinary rapidity, spirit, and grace. Few indeed among even the very lowest of the most impoverished cla.s.s have grown into youth without obtaining some lessons in dancing from the travelling dancing-masters of their district; and certainly, in the way they use it, many would be disposed to grant a dispensation to the young peasant, which they would withhold from the young peer. It is, however, sadly abused among them, to Sabbath-breakings, revellings, and the most immoral scenes, where they are congregated and kept together under its influence; and the same scene enacted a year afterwards would have awoke in my mind very different feelings from those with which I regarded this first spectacle of Irish hilarity, when I could hardly be restrained by the laughing remonstrances of "the quality" from throwing myself into the midst of the joyous group and dancing with them.

But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little; when the fire had burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry pa.s.sed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse's head fixed to one end and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with load shouts as the "white horse;" and having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented all cattle. Here was the old pagan wors.h.i.+p of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name. I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of pagan idolatries to its own scheme; and while I looked upon the now wildly excited people with their children, and in a figure all their cattle, pa.s.sing again and again through the fire, I almost questioned in my own mind the lawfulness of the spectacle, considered in the light that the Bible must, even to the natural heart, exhibit it in to those who confess the true G.o.d. There was no one to whom I could breathe such thoughts, and they soon faded from my mind: not so the impression made on it by this fair specimen of a population whom I had long cla.s.sed with the savage inhabitants of barbarous lands, picturing them to myself as dark, ferocious, discontented, and malignant. That such was the reverse of their natural character I now began to feel convinced; and from that evening my heart gradually warmed towards a race whom I found to be frank, warm, and affectionate, beyond any I had ever met with.

My interest in them, however, was soon to be placed on another and a firmer basis. I took up my permanent abode in a neighboring county; and within six months after that celebration of St. John's eve, I experienced the mighty power of G.o.d in a way truly marvellous. Great and marvellous are _all_ his works, in creating, in sustaining, in governing this world of wonderful creatures; but Oh, how surpa.s.singly marvellous and great in redeeming lost sinners, in taking away the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, and making his people willing in the day of his power! I have carefully abstained from any particulars respecting myself that could either cast a reproach on the dead or give pain to the living; I shall do so still, and merely remark, that as far as this world was concerned, my lot had no happiness mingled in it, and that my only solace under many grievous trials consisted in two things: one was a careful concealment of whatever might subject my proud spirit to the mortification of being pitied when I desired rather to be envied; and the other a confident a.s.surance, that in suffering afflictions silently, unresistingly, and uncomplainingly, I was making G.o.d my debtor to a large amount. What desperate wickedness of a deceived and deceitful heart was this! The very thing in which I so arrogantly vaunted myself before G.o.d was the direct result of personal pride, in itself a great sin; and thus I truly gloried in my shame. I never looked beyond the rod to Him who had appointed it; but satisfying myself that I had not merited from man any severity, my demerits at the hand of the Most High were wholly put out of the calculation. Thus, of course, every stroke drove me further from the only Rock of refuge, and deeper into the fastness of my own vain conceits. Added to this, I was wholly shut out from all the ordinary means by which the Lord usually calls sinners to himself. There was no gospel ministry then within my reach; nor could I, if it were provided, have profited by it, owing to my infirmity, (deafness.) Into Christian society I had never entered, nor had the least glimmer of spiritual light shone into my mind. My religion was that of the Pharisee, and my addresses to G.o.d included, like his, an acknowledgment that it was by divine favor I was so much better than my neighbors. Reality had so far chased away romance, that my old favorite authors had little power to charm me; and the hollowness of my affected gayety and ease made society a very sickening thing. * * *

At the time I am now to speak of, I was living in perfect seclusion, and uninterrupted solitude. Captain ---- was always in Dublin, and my chief occupation was in hunting out, and transcribing and arranging matter for the professional gentlemen conducting the lawsuit, from a ma.s.s of confused family papers and doc.u.ments. Our property consisted of a large number of poor cabins with their adjoining land, forming a complete street on the outskirts of the town, which was greatly in arrear to the head landlords, and a periodical "distress" took place. On these occasions a keeper was set over the property, some legal papers were served, and the household goods--consisting of iron kettles, wooden stools, broken tables, a ragged blanket or two, and the little store of potatoes, the sole support of the wretched inhabitants--were brought out, piled in a long row down the street, and "canted," that is, put up to sale, for the payment of perhaps one or two per cent. of the arrears.

This horrified me beyond measure: I was ashamed to be seen among the people who were called our tenants, though this proceeding did not emanate from their immediate landlord; and every thing combined to render the seclusion of my own garden more congenial to me than any wider range.

It was then that I came to the resolution of being a perfect devotee in religion: I thought myself marvellously good; but something of monastic mania seized me. I determined to emulate the recluses of whom I had often read; to become a sort of Protestant nun; and to fancy my garden, with its high stone-walls and little thicket of apple-trees, a convent enclosure. I also settled it with myself to pray three or four times every day, instead of twice; and with great alacrity entered upon this new routine of devotion.

Here G.o.d met and arrested me. When I kneeled down to pray, the strangest alarms took hold of my mind. He to whom I had been accustomed to prate with flippant volubility in a set form of heartless words, seemed to my startled mind so exceedingly terrible in unapproachable majesty, and so very angry with me in particular, that I became paralyzed with fear. I strove against this with characteristic pertinacity; I called to mind all the commonplace a.s.surances respecting the sufficiency of a good intention, and magnified alike my doings and my sufferings. I persuaded myself it was only a holy awe, the effect of distinguished piety and rare humility, and that I was really an object of the divine complacency in no ordinary degree. Again I essayed to pray, but in vain; I dared not. Then I attributed it to a nervous state of feeling that would wear away by a little abstraction from the subject; but this would not do. To leave off praying was impossible, yet to pray seemed equally so. I well remember that the character in which I chiefly viewed the Lord G.o.d was that of an Avenger, going forth to smite the first-born of Egypt; and I somehow identified myself with the condemned number. Often, after kneeling a long time, I have laid my face upon my arms, and wept most bitterly, because I could not, dared not pray.

It was not in my nature to be driven back easily from any path I had entered on; and here the Lord wrought on me to persevere resolutely. I began to examine myself, in order to discover _why_ I was afraid; and taking as my rule the ten commandments, I found myself sadly deficient on some points. The tenth affected me as it never had done before. "I had not known l.u.s.t," because I had not understood the law when it said, "Thou shalt not covet." A casual glance at the declaration of St. James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," alarmed me exceedingly; and on a sudden it occurred to me that not only the ten commandments, but all the precepts of the New Testament, were binding on a Christian; and I trembled more than ever.

What was to be done? To reform myself, certainly, and become obedient to the whole law. Accordingly I went to work, transcribed all the commands that I felt myself most in the habit of neglecting, and pinned up a dozen or two texts around my room. It required no small effort to enter this apartment and walk round it, reading my mementos. That active schoolmaster, the law, had got me fairly under his rod, and dreadful were the writhings of the convicted culprit, I soon, however, took down my texts, fearing lest some one else might see them, and not knowing they were for myself, be exasperated. I then made a little hook, wrote down a list of offences, and commenced making a dot over against each, whenever I detected myself in the commission of one. I had become very watchful over my thoughts, and was honest in recording all evil; so my book became a ma.s.s of black dots; and the reflection that occurred to me of omissions being sins too, completed the panic of my mind. I flung away my book into the fire, and myself into an abyss of gloomy despair.

How long this miserable state of mind lasted, I do not exactly remember; I think about two weeks. I could not pray. I dared not read the Bible, it bore so very hard upon me. Outwardly, I was calm and even cheerful, but within reigned the very blackness of darkness. Death, with which I had so often sported, appeared in my eyes so terrible, that the slightest feeling of illness filled my soul with dismay. I saw no way of escape: I had G.o.d's perfect law before my eyes, and a full conviction of my own past sinfulness and present helplessness, leaving me wholly without hope. Hitherto I had never known a day's illness for years; one of G.o.d's rich mercies to me consisted in uninterrupted health, and a wonderful freedom from all nervous affections. I knew almost as little of the sensation of a headache as I did of that of tight-lacing; and now a violent cold, with sore throat, aggravated into fever by the state of my mind, completely prostrated me. I laid myself down on the sofa one morning and waited to see how my earthly miseries would terminate; too well knowing what must follow the close of a sinner's life.

I had not lain long, when a neighbor hearing I was ill, sent me some books just received from Dublin, as a loan, hoping I might find some amus.e.m.e.nt in them. Listlessly, wretchedly, mechanically, I opened one; it was the memoir of a departed son, written by his father. I read a page describing the approach of death, and was arrested by the youth's expressions of self-condemnation, his humble acknowledgment of having deserved at the Lord's hand nothing but eternal death. "Ah, poor fellow," said I, "he was like me. How dreadful his end must have been; I will see what he said at last, when on the very brink of the bottomless pit." I resumed the book, and found him in continuation glorifying G.o.d that though _he_ was so guilty and so vile, there was ONE able to save to the uttermost, who had borne his sins, satisfied divine justice for him, opened the gates of heaven, and now waited to receive his ransomed soul.

The book dropped from my hands. "O, what is this? This is what I want: this would save me. Who did this for him? Jesus Christ, certainly; and it must be written in the New Testament." I tried to jump up and reach my Bible, but was overpowered by the emotion of my mind. I clasped my hands over my eyes, and then the blessed effects of having even a literal knowledge of scripture were apparent. Memory brought before me, as the Holy Spirit directed it, not here and there a detached text, but whole chapters, as they had long been committed to its safe but hitherto unprofitable keeping. The veil was removed from my heart, and Jesus Christ, as the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of every thing, shone out upon me just as he is set forth in the everlasting gospel. It was the same as if I had been reading, because I knew it so well by rote, only much more rapid, as thought always is. In this there was nothing uncommon; but in the _opening of the understanding, that I might_ UNDERSTAND _the scriptures_, was the mighty miracle of grace and truth. There I lay, still as death, my hands still folded over nay eyes, my very soul basking in the pure, calm, holy light, that streamed into it through the appointed channel of G.o.d's word. Rapture was not what I felt; excitement, enthusiasm, agitation, there was none.

I was like a person long enclosed in a dark dungeon, the walls of which had now fallen down, and I looked round on a sunny landscape of calm and glorious beauty. I well remember that the Lord Jesus, in the character of a shepherd, of a star, and above all, as the pearl of great price, seemed revealed to me most beautifully: that he could save every body I at once saw; that he would save me, never even took the form of a question. Those who have received the gospel by man's preaching may doubt and cavil; I took it simply from the Bible, in the words that G.o.d's wisdom teacheth, and thus I argued: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners: I am a sinner; I want to be saved: he will save me." There is no presumption in taking G.o.d at his word: not to do so is very impertinent: I did it, and I was happy.

After some time I rose from the sofa, and walked about. My feelings were delicious. I had found HIM of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write; I had found the very Paschal Lamb whose blood would be my safeguard from the destroying angel. Oh, how delicious was that particular thought to me. It was one of the first that occurred, and I laughed with gladness. Indeed my feeling was very joyous, and I only wanted somebody to tell it to. I had two servants, one a young woman, the other a little girl, both papists, both loving me with Irish warmth.

They were delighted to see me so well and happy on a sudden; and in the evening I bade them come to my room, for I was going to read a beautiful book, and would read it aloud. I began the gospel of St. Matthew, and read nine chapters to them, their wonder and delight increasing my joy.

Whenever I proposed leaving off, they begged for more; and only for my poor throat, I think we should have gone on till day. I prayed with them, and what a night's rest I had! Sleep so sweet, a waking so happy, and a joy so unclouded through the day, what but the gospel could bestow? Few, very few, have been so left alone as I was with the infallible teaching of G.o.d the Holy Ghost by means of the written word, for many weeks, and so to get a thorough knowledge of the great doctrines of salvation, unclouded by man's vain wisdom. I knew not that in the world there were any who had made the same discovery with myself.

Of all schemes of doctrine I was wholly ignorant, and the only system of theology open to me was G.o.d's own. All the faculties of my mind were roused and brightened for the work. I prayed, without ceasing, for divine instruction; and took, without cavilling, what was vouchsafed. On this subject I must enter more largely, for it is one of immense importance.

LETTER VI.

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.

I am standing before you now in the character of one who, having been brought under conviction of sin into utter self-despair, had found in Christ Jesus a refuge from the storm of G.o.d's anger. I felt myself safe in him; but as the revelation which G.o.d had made to man was not confined to the sole point of a _satisfaction_ for the sins of men, I felt it my bounden duty to search for all that the Most High had seen good to acquaint his people with. At the same time I found myself a member of a church calling itself Christian; but I too had called myself a Christian, while as yet wholly ignorant of Christ, therefore I could not depend upon a name. I knew that there were other churches, each putting in a claim to a higher and purer standard than its neighbors, and it behooved me to know which of them all was in the right, I had no books of a religious character--not one; no clergyman among my acquaintance, no means of inquiry, save as regarded my own church, whose Liturgy and Articles lay before me. I resolved to bring them first to the test of scripture, and if they failed, to look out for a better.

How I commenced the work and pursued it, I need not state. I tried every thing, as well as I could, by the Bible; and my satisfaction was great to find the purest, clearest strain of evangelical truth breathing through the book which I had used all my life long, as I did the Bible, without entering into its real meaning. How I could possibly escape seeing the doctrines of faith, regeneration, and the rest of G.o.d's revelation in them both, was strange to me; but I understood that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of G.o.d, and mourned over the darkness that I supposed universal.

I found it distinctly stated by our Lord, that "except a man be _born again_, he cannot see the kingdom of G.o.d;" and this served as a key to many pa.s.sages in the epistles and other parts of scripture ill.u.s.trative of the same solemn truth. I had never understood, never thought of this. Did my church hold it? Yes; it was not only laid down as a fundamental doctrine in her Articles, but constantly put into the mouths of her congregation, either expressed or clearly implied. Again, I found that _not by works but by faith_ I was to be justified before G.o.d; and this also ran through the prayer-book, with unvarying distinctness; though with that book in my hand and its contents on my lips I had been hitherto attempting to scale heaven by a ladder of my own forming.

The Athanasian creed brought to my recollection a circ.u.mstance that had occurred a few years before, the importance of which had never been known to me until I was brought acquainted with the saving truths of the gospel. I now looked back upon it with trembling joy and grat.i.tude to him who had preserved me from a snare into which the pride of intellect, joined to spiritual ignorance, would have been sure to lead me, but for the watchful care of my heavenly Father, still working by means of my blind but sincere reverence for his word. In my native town, Socinianism flourished to a fearful extent; it has long been a very hotbed of that fatal heresy, the holders of which are found among many leading characters of wealth, influence, and high attainments. I knew no more of it than that it was one of the many forms of dissent with which I had nothing to do. I was acquainted with several of its disciples; but as religion formed no part of our social intercourse, its peculiarities were wholly unknown to me.

Not long before my trip to America I had been staying in Norwich, in the same house with a most clever, intelligent, and amiable woman, of whom I was very fond. I knew her to be a dissenter, and that was all. One evening she drew me into a conversation, the commencement of which I forget, but it soon arrived at a denial, on her part, of the G.o.dhead of Christ, which exceedingly astonished me, for I never supposed that could be called in question. I ran for the Bible, saying, I would soon show her it was not to be disputed; and she in return a.s.serted that I could not prove it out of the _inspired scriptures_. After pondering for a while, I recollected the first chapter of Revelation, which, for its sublimity, I ranked among the highest of my poetical gems, and that it unequivocally proclaimed the divinity of our glorious Lord. I opened at it, on which she burst into a laugh, saying, "You are not so weak as to fancy that book of riddles any part of G.o.d's word!" "Why it is in the Bible, you see," replied I, half indignantly. "And who put it there?

Come, you are a person of too much sense to believe that the binding up of certain leaves between the two covers of the Bible makes them a part of it. You must exercise the reason that G.o.d has given you, and in so doing you will discover so many interpolations and deceptions in that version of yours, that you will be glad to find a more accurate one."

She continued in the same strain for some time. I was greatly agitated; I closed the great Bible, and leaning on it with folded arms, my heart beating violently against the bright red cover, I gave heed to all she said. My love of novelty, pa.s.sion for investigation, and the metaphysical turn that had sometimes made my father quite uneasy about me, when he saw me at eight years old poring over abstruse reasonings with the zest of an old philosopher, were all in her favor. I felt as if the foundation of my faith was giving way, and I was being launched on a sea of strange uncertainty. When she concluded, I laid my forehead on the book in most deep and anxious thought. I did not pray: G.o.d was found of one who sought him not, for surely he alone dictated my answer. I started up, and with the greatest vivacity said, "Mrs. ----, if you can persuade me that the book of Revelation is not inspired, another person may do the same with regard to the book of Genesis, and so of all that lie between them, till the whole Bible is taken away from me. That will never do; I cannot part with my dear Bible. I believe it all, every word of it, and I am sure I should be miserable if I did not." Then, kissing the precious volume with the affection one feels for what is in danger of being lost to us, I carried it back to its shelf, and declined any further discussion on the subject. She told some one else she was sure of having me yet; but the good providence of G.o.d interposed to remove me from the scene of danger.

That metaphysical turn I omitted to mention among my early snares; my father checked it, although it was a great hobby of his own. He had seen its fearful abuse in the origin of the French revolution, and regarded it as one of the evil spirits of the age. I recollect the mixture of mirth and vexation depicted in his face one morning, when on his remarking that I did not look well and inquiring if any thing ailed me, I replied, "No, but I could not get any sleep."

"What prevented your sleeping?"

"I was thinking, papa, of '_Cogito, ergo sum_'--'I think, therefore I exist'--and I lay awake, trying to find out all about it."

"'_Cogito, ergo sum!'_" repeated my father, laughing and frowning at the same time; "what will you be at twenty, if you dabble in metaphysics before you are ten? Come, I must set you to study Euclid; that will sober your wild head a little." I took the book with great glee, delighted to have a new field of inquiry, but soon threw it aside.

Mathematics and I could never agree. Speculative and imaginative in an extraordinary degree, carrying much sail with scarcely any ballast, what but the ever watchful care of Him who sitteth upon the circle of the earth could have preserved from fatal wrecking a vessel so frail, while yet without pilot, helm, or chart?

It was the recollection of my short encounter with the Socinian that satisfied me respecting the Athanasian creed. I felt that had I taken up its bold a.s.sertions and established every one of them, as now I did, by scripture, no sophistry could have staggered my faith, though it had been but a reasoning, not a saving faith, in that high doctrine of the coexistent, coequal Trinity. I did not then know--for of all church history I was ignorant--that its original object was not so much to establish a truth, as to detect and defeat a falsehood. The d.a.m.natory clauses, as they are called, did not startle me. I saw clearly the fact that G.o.d had made a revelation of himself to man, which revelation man was not at liberty to receive or to reject, and as without faith it is impossible to please G.o.d, and that alone is faith which implicitly believes the record that he hath given of his Son, the deductions in question were perfectly fair and orthodox. I frequently wondered, when subsequently brought into the arena of various controversies, at the ease with which, aided by the Bible alone, I settled so many disputed points; and as it really was by the Bible I settled them, man's teaching has never yet on any subject altered my views. * * *

Whether it be regarded as presumptuous or not, I must thankfully avow that during the weeks when I was left alone with my Bible, I obtained a view of the whole scheme of redemption and G.o.d's dealings with man, which to this hour I have never found reason to alter in any one respect, save as greater light has continually broken in on each branch of the subject, strengthening, not changing those views. You will see in the progress of my sketch, how complete a bulwark against error in numberless shapes I have found in this simple adherence to the plain word of truth--this habit of bringing every proposition "to the law and to the testimony;" fully persuaded that "if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

I now proceed to an interesting epoch in my life: the commencement of my literary labors in the Lord's cause. It marks very strongly the overruling hand of Him who was working all things after the counsel of his own will; and I will give it you without curtailment, together with my introduction, through it to the Christian community of the land.

My life, as I told you, was solitary and retired; my time chiefly pa.s.sed in writing out doc.u.mentary matters for the lawyers. The circ.u.mstance of my using the pen so incessantly became known, and I was looked on as a literary recluse. One day a lady personally unknown to me, but whose indefatigable zeal was always seeking the good of others, sent me a parcel of tracts. With equal wonder and delight I opened one of them, a simple, spiritual little production; and the next that I took up was an inducement to distribute tracts among the poor. From this I learned that some excellent people were engaged in a work quite new to me; and, with a sigh, I wished I had the means of contributing to their funds.

Presently the thought flashed upon me, "Since I cannot give them money, may I not write something to be useful in the same way?" I had just then no work before me, and a long winter evening at command. I ordered large candles, told the servants not to interrupt me, and sat down to my novel task. I began about seven o'clock, and wrote till three in the morning; when I found I had produced a complete little story, in the progress of which I had been enabled so to set forth the truth as it is in Jesus, that on reading it over I was amazed at the statement I had made of scriptural truth, and sunk on my knees in thankfulness to G.o.d. Next morning I awoke full of joy, but much puzzled as to what I should do with my tract. At length, in the simplicity of my heart, I resolved to send it to the bishop of Norwich, and busied myself at the breakfast- table in computing how many franks it would fill. While thus employed, a note was put into my hands from Miss D----, apologizing for the liberty taken, saying she had sent me, the day before, some tracts, and as she heard I was much occupied with the pen, it had occurred to her that I might be led to write something myself; in the possibility of which she now enclosed the address of the secretary to the Dublin Tract Society, to whom such aid would be most welcome.

I was absolutely awe-struck by this very striking incident. I saw in it a gracious acceptance of my freewill offering at His hands to whom it had been prayerfully dedicated; and in two hours the ma.n.u.script was on its way to Dublin, with a very simple letter to the secretary. A cordial answer, commendatory of my tract and earnestly entreating a continuance of such aid, soon reached me, with some remarks and questions that required a fuller communication of my circ.u.mstances and feelings. He had recommended frequent intercourse with the peasantry, of whose habits and modes of expression I was evidently ignorant, and I then mentioned my loss of hearing as a bar to this branch of usefulness, His rejoinder was the overflowing of a truly Christian heart, very much touched by an artless account of the Lord's dealings with me; and greatly did my spirit rejoice at having found a brother in the faith thus to cheer and strengthen me.

But alas, a few days afterwards, Miss D----, whom I had still never seen, wrote to apprize me that this excellent man had ruptured a blood- vessel and was dying. Still he did not forget me, but after lingering for some weeks, on his death-bed commended me to the friends.h.i.+p of his brother, who from that period proved a true and valuable helper to me.

Meanwhile I was beginning to take a view of popery, under the light of the gospel. As yet, I knew nothing of it spiritually; and my retired life kept me from observing how it worked among the poor people around.

My attention was first directed to it by a conversation with the younger of my two servants; she slept in my apartment, and I remarked that while kneeling at her devotions she not only uttered them with amazing rapidity, but carried on all the while the operation of undressing, with perfect inattention to what she was saying. I asked her the purport of her prayers; she told me she said the "Our Father," and then the "Hail Mary:" at my request she repeated the latter, and I gave her a gentle lecture on the irreverence of chattering to G.o.d so volubly, and of employing herself about her clothes at the same time; adding that she should be devout, deliberate, and quiet while speaking to G.o.d; but as for the Virgin Mary it was no matter how she addressed her, if address her she would, for being only a dead woman she could know nothing about it. This, I am ashamed to say, was the extent of my actual protest at that time. The girl took it all very readily, and ever after, during her address to G.o.d, she knelt with her hands joined, repeating the words slowly and seriously; but the moment she commenced the "Hail Mary," to make up for lost time she prattled it so rapidly, and tore open the fastenings of her dress with such bustling speed, that I could scarcely refrain from laughing. A little reflection, however, convinced me it was an act of idolatry, and no laughing matter; and from that time I inquired as deeply as I could into their faith and practice; constantly showing them from the scriptures how contrary their religion was to that of the gospel. Still it was but a very partial and superficial view that I could as yet obtain of the great mystery of iniquity through these ignorant and thoughtless girls; and to this must be attributed my sad failure in not warning them more distinctly to come out of Babylon. I rather tried to patch up the old, decayed, tattered garment with the new piece of the gospel, as many more have done; and so made the rent worse, instead of replacing the vile article with one of G.o.d's providing.

When that excellent man, Mr. D----, was committed to the grave, his younger brother visited me on his way back to Dublin. That interview I shall never forget; he talked to me out of the overflowings of a heart devoted to Christ, and left me pining for more extended enjoyment of Christian society. I was not long ungratified; within three days an unexpected summons took me to Dublin, and on the very evening of my arrival Mr. D---- introduced me to a party of about thirty pious friends, a.s.sembled to meet a missionary just returned from Russia.

Remember these were the frank, unrestrained, warmhearted Irish, of all people the most ready at expressing their zealous and generous feelings; and imagine, if you can, my enjoyment, after such a long season of comparative loneliness, when they came about me with the affectionate welcome that none can utter and look so eloquently as they can. I thought it a foretaste of heavenly blessedness; and yet I often longed for those seasons when I had none but my G.o.d to commune with, and poured out to him all that now I found it delightful to utter to my fellow- creatures. Then, my tabernacle was indeed pitched in the wilderness, and the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation, and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness.

A few months after this, the lawsuit being ended, my husband was ordered abroad. I declined to cross the Atlantic a second time, and from this period I became chiefly dependent on my own exertions. My mother had joined me in Ireland, having been made a partaker in the like precious faith and hope with myself. * * *

LETTER VII.

KILKENNY.

We took up our abode in the town of Kilkenny, so richly blessed with gospel privileges, and so far removed from the annoyances to which I was exposed while trying to fulfil the landlord's part over a property inextricably involved, and now also placed in the hands of trustees. I had sought the maintenance of that character for the sake of the poor tenants, whose affection, for me was very great, and among whom I had of late been frequently allowed to read the scriptures. The necessity, however, of providing for myself, and the hopeless perplexities of my nominal office, between head-landlords, under-tenants, trustees, a receiver, and all the endless machinery of an embarra.s.sed little Irish estate, compelled me to seek a more quiet sphere; and in Kilkenny I found all that could combine to encourage me in the pursuit of honest independence in the way of usefulness. I finished "Osric," which formed a good-sized volume, and commenced the pleasant task of writing penny and twopenny books for the Dublin Tract Society, who paid me liberally, and cheered me on my path with all the warmth of Christian affection. It was indeed a delightful task, and G.o.d had raised up to me also a friend to whose truly paternal kindness I owe more than ever can be told, Mr.

George Sandford, now Lord Mountsandford, who, from our first acquaintance, entered with a father's interest into all that concerned me. Thus encouraged, I held on my way, and tasted the sweets that I hope to enjoy to the end of my days--those of the original curse brightened by the irreversible blessing: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread;" "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor shall not be in vain in the Lord."

I have already told you my escape from the snare of Socinianism; and now I am to narrate a trial of faith and doctrine which by the mercy of G.o.d produced effects just the reverse of what was intended. This was no less than a vigorous attempt to convert me to Popery. I had not yet bestowed any great attention on the details of that abominable device, but was most fully persuaded of its being a system of idolatrous delusion, the working of which was strikingly manifested in the wretchedness, the immorality, the turbulence and degrading superst.i.tions of the poor creatures around me. It never had been my practice to tamper with or to compromise what I knew to be wrong; therefore I had not suffered curiosity to lead me within the walls of a ma.s.s-house, nor in any way to put on the semblance of an agreement which cannot really exist between the temple of G.o.d and idols. I believed Popery to be the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and I longed for resolution to proclaim to the deluded victims, "Come out of her, my people," This I had never done, but on the contrary fell cheerfully in with the then cautious policy of my friends, and so framed my little books and tracts as to leave it doubtful whether they were written by a Protestant or not. Paul to the Jews became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews: I, by a false process of reason, thought it allowable to become as an idolater to the idolaters, that I might gain the idolaters. An awful, presumptuous sin! The Jew possesses the fair blossom of gospel truth, which by kindly fostering is to be expanded and ripened into the rich fruit: the Papist holds in his hand an apple of Sodom, beneath the painted rind of which is a ma.s.s of ashes and corruption. He must be induced to fling it away, and to pluck from the tree of life a wholly different thing.