MRS. LETITIA COCKBURN was descended in the female line from the noble family of the Ruffels. Lofing her parents when young, the care of her education devolved on an affectionate aunt; a woman of fine fenfe, polished manners, and exemplary virtue. Whilft under the age of twenty fhe was united to an officer in the army; who, by diftinguished merit in his profeffion, attained to a high military rank. In this fituation fhe was led to mix with perfons in the up per ranks of fociety, and to partake with the gaiety of youth, of the pleafures and diffipation peculiar to the fathionable world. But though placed in fuch unfavourable circumstances, she still discharged, in a confcientious manner, the duties of a wife and a mother. Nor did her intercourfe with the world make her forget the importance of religion: fhe had been taught, whilft a child, to think of religion with the highest reverence, and the impreffion remained after she was grown up. She was in the conftant habit of reading her Bible, nor did the permit herself, at any time, to neglect attendance on publick worship, or the exercife of private devotion. She even perfuaded herself that the loved God and kept his commandments; in fhort, that the fulfilled every demand which religion had, either on her Vol. I. No. 3.

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[Vol. I.

life, or her affections: she was therefore perfectly at eafe in the courfe which he was purfuing. But it pleafed God, by means of fome afflictive difpenfations, to lead her to confider her ways more perfectly, to perceive their vanity, and by degrees to appreciate more juftly her ftate and character before God, and to apply her heart to true wifdem. After drinking deeply of the bitter cup of afflic tion, the found that the world, with all its pleasures, was a miferable comforter; that her best friend was her God and Saviour, and her fafeft counfellor the word of his grace. Various events leading her to a more private fituation in life, fhe was now lefs diverted from religious purfuits; and to the utmost of her ability the employed herself in the exercise of piety, benevolence, and charity to the poor. Indeed she was by nature generous, kindly affectioned, and given to hofpitality, though, at the fame time, her temper was hafty, impetuous, and impatient of restraint.

It pleafed God, in his great goodness at this time, to introduce to her acquaintance feveral perfons, who "knew the grace of God in truth," and who did not fhun to declare to her the whole counfel of God. Their friendly admonitions for fome time feemed

to be as feed buried in the earth; but at length it produced fruit to his glory. As the was returning from church on the 25th of May, 1804, he was attacked with a a painful and dangerous diforder, and from that time fhe became evidently more alive than ever to the great concerns of eternity. Deeply convinced of the fpirituality of God's holy law, and of her own guilt in having violated it, the plainly felt her awful fituation as a loft finner, and was led by the Spirit of God to flee for refuge to the hope fet before her in the gof pel. Her diforder, though flow in its progrefs, was not to be overcome; but to her own confolation, and the great joy of her friends, as her bodily ftrength declined, her fpiritual ftrength manifeftly increafed day by day. While difcourfing with her beloved fon, fhe would often fay to him, "I know not to what caufe to afcribe it, but I never felt fuch calm refignation. to the will of God, during any former illness, as I now do." When fhe perceived his grief and anxiety on her account, the fweetly reproved him for it. Though in Though in much pain fhe complained not; and with little or no hope of re-. covery fhe was perfectly calm, and in her words and actions mild and gentle as a lamb. Even when much enfeebled, fhe was often heard to fing parts of the Magnificat in a clear fine voice, particuJarly the words " My foul doth magnify the Lord, and my fpirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour," and during the sharpeft paroxyfms of pain the would often repeat, Glory be to God.-At intervals of eafe fhe requested her dear daughter-in-law, whofe attentions were unremitted, to read to her the feven firit, and the last ftanza, of the 139th Pfalm, N. V. Du.

ring the converfations which the frequently had with a pious clergyman of the Church of England, who frequently vifited her in her illness, and who was made the inftrument of great good to her foul, when reminded by him of her loft eftate by nature, and that the atoning blood of Chrift was the only foundation of her hopes, fhe conftantly profeffed that the knew he was a finner, had no merit of her own to plead, and that her only hope was in the tender mercies of her Redeemer, who shed his blood for the remiffion of fins.

Toward the latter end of September her disorder had made fuch ravages, that hope was at an end, and about the last ten days of her life he was confined wholly to her bed. Frequently and most devoutly did fhe befeech God in his mercy, to bless her children and friends, and to forgive all who had injured her, declaring that she herself most cordially forgave them. Such declarations fhe made repeatedly and emphatically before her participation of the facrament of the Lord's Supper, in which folemn act of devotion her fervid piety was highly edifying. The prayers of her pious friends had been repeatedly offered at the throne of grace for divine fupport and confolation; and both were now extended to her in a remark

able manner. Her foul appeared' to be filled with a fenfe of her Saviour's love, and the feemed to have a foretafte of the happiness which awaited her in that better world to which he was fast approaching. On the day before her death, fhe fuffered great pain, and was very reftlefs. On the next day, which was her laft, fhe appeared perfectly eafy, with a placid fmile in her countenance expreffive of the ferenity that pre

vailed within. Bean's Prayer for Departing Souls was read, and, after fome interval, the Commendatory Prayer for a Perfon at the Point of Death, which, after another interval, was repeated. As the prayer advanced her breathing became weaker; and as the prayer ended the breathed her laft. Her fpirit and the interceffion of her chriftians friends, it is hoped, afcended to heaven together. Her fon, who had not moved from her bedfide for a confiderable time before her departure, held her hands between his at this folemn moment, and received her last breath. Not a groan nor throb was heard, nor was the leaft change of countenance perceptable.-She fell afleep in Jesus.

Thus died this excellent woman, at her fon's houfe in Lanfdown place, Bath, on Sunday evening, the 11th of November, 1804, in the feventy-fecond year of her age. May every reader of this narrative, encouraged by fo ftriking an instance of divine mercy, become a follower of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises; that, together with those who have died in the Lord, he may be a joyful partaker of that bleffed reft which remaineth for the people of God.

From the Christian Observer.

LIFE OF ST. IRENAEUS.

HISTORY has conveyed to us few particulars of the first years of the life of Irenæus, and has not even specified his country, or the place of his birth. There is, however, fufficient ground for believing him to have been a Greek, and to have acquired in his youth a competent acquaintance with the philofophy and literature, which were then in vogue. The circumftances which led him to embrace

christianity are no where mentioned; but it appears, from his own writings, as well as from the teftimony of Eufebius and Theodoret, that he was placed, at an early age, under the inftructions of St. Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, who had been the difciple of St. John. His words are, "when

:

I was yet a child I was in the Lower Afia with Polycarp ;" and "I remember the things then done better than what has happened of late for what we learn being children, increases together with the mind itself, and is clofely united to it: Infomuch that I am able to tell even the place where the bleffed Polycarp fat and difcourfed; alfo his goings-out and comings-in; his manner of life; the fhape of his body; his difcourfes to the people; the familiar intercourfe which he faid he had with John, and with the reft who had feen the Lord; and how he rehearfed their fayings; and what they were which he had heard from them concerning the Lord, his miracles, and his doctrines. According as Polycarp received them from thofe who with their own eyes beheld the word of life, fo he related them, agreeing in all things with the fcriptures. These things, by the mercy of God bestowed on me, I then heard diligently, and copied them out, not in paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of God I do continually and fincerely ruminate on them."

The account which has been already given of Polycarp fufficiently thews, that by him Irenæus must have been taught the true and uncorrupted doctrine of the Apoftles; and was likely alfo, confidering the deep reverence

The life of Folycarp shall be given in a fu ture number.

which he felt for his master, to imbibe from him a fpirit nearly allied to theirs. Accordingly we find him, in after life, to have been an eminent example of the effect of genuine christianity in fanctifying the heart, and elevating the foul above worldly and fenfual objects.

*

Irenæus is also faid to have been, for fome time, a scholar of Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis, a man of unquestionable piety, but of a weak judgment and narrow underftanding, which, leading him to mifapprehend fome of the more abftrufe parts of fcripture, proved the occafion of great errors in many who followed him and revered his memory; errors, the contagion of which Irenæus himfelf did not wholly escape.

Of the life of Irenæus nothing more is known until the year of our Lord 177. We then find him acting as Prefbyter of the Church of Lyons in France, under Pothinus, who was Bishop of that fee. The circumftances which led to his being placed in this fituation have not been recorded but the gofpel having been first planted in Lyons, at no very remote period, by means of miffionaries fent thither by one of the Afiatick churches, the Gallick chriftians probably continued paftors from the fame quarter; availing themselves for that purpofe of the commercial intercourfe fubfifting between the two Pothinus, the Bifhop, was evidently a Greek as well as Irenæus.

countries.

Soon after Marcus Aurelius Antonius+ had fucceeded to the

Papias had likewife been a difciple of St. John.

This is the fame perfon whom Mr. Pope celebrates in the following lines:

throne of the Cæfars, a perfecu. tion commenced against the chriftians, which continued with only occafional and partial inter milions during his reign of nineteen years. In 177, the ftorm of this perfecution fell with pe culiar violence on France, and particularly on the churches of Lyons and Vienne. An account of the miferies which it there produced is contained in an epiftle addreffed by thefe churches to their brethren in Afia and Phrygia, and written, as is most probable, by Irenæus himself; the subftance of which will now be given.

It would not have fuited the poet's purpofe, or rather that of his infidel ined to view, as eminent examples of vir ftructor, Bolingbroke, to have exhibittue, thofe whose ardent love of Chirst, and whofe realizing views of eternity, had rendered them fuperior to every worldly or selfish confideration: whom neither tribulation, nor distress, nor perfecution, nor famine, nor nakednefs, nor peril, nor the fword, could move from the prosecution of the nobleft end; the glory of God, by the nobleft means; an entire devotedness of

themselves, fouls and bodies, to his fer

vice. No, it is the implacable perfecu tor of thofe very men, every period of whofe hiftory is ftained with their blood, and whofe delegated cruelties toward them (though they were, indeed, the excellent of the earth) cannot be read without indignation and horror; this is the man whom our briftian Poet felects as his pattern of imperial magnanimity, of true good nefs and nobleness of mind! See Milner's Church History, Vol. I.

It was to the fury of this perfecution that St. Polycarp and Juftin Mar tyr, fell victims,