characteristic grace of Him Who occupies the highest place-far above all power and dominion and glory in heaven and added, that humility came therefore recommended to us with a royal grace attached to it, since the Christ of God, and King of kings, Who might have come down to earth arrayed in robes of glory, had worn the dusky garment of humility. Surely," said he, "we read in this an intimation not to be mistaken,-if we would receive the lesson,-that, since it was thus that our Divine Master appeared among us, leaving us an example, we, His servants, should desire to be also clothed with humility. We see, in fact, that it is thus the loveliest and rarest graces adorn men of a humble heart; and the cause may easily be traced to this fact, that God giveth grace to the humble. How striking is the exhortation of the apostle Peter on this point! how affecting, as coming from the lips of him who had been, at one time, the most arrogant and self-sufficient of our Lord's disciples; All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.' But alas!" he continued, gravely, "it is easy to talk about humility; how different, and how difficult a thing it is to be really humble."

I came away feeling that it was good to be in company of such persons as Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt, and hoping that I had learnt something worth retaining in that visit.

I may thank God that the lines are fallen to me in pleasant places. This valley was lovely in my eyes before; but it has now assumed to me a higher character of loveliness. It is, indeed, a fair type of its possessors: nature has given to it the charm which grace has given to them.

October 18.-The Lord's Day.

I humbly and heartily thank God for the mercies of this day. Its services had presented almost an awful character to me, for I felt that I had before performed the duties of my ministry as a hireling, and that, for the first time, I had come to feed the flock of Christ's sheep as a pastor. The weight of my responsibility oppressed me so heavily, that I felt my heart almost die within me; and it was only after wrestling with that unseen and glorious Being, the sense of Whose presence at once alarmed and strengthened me, that I was enabled to leave my study, for the church, with any thing like selfpossession. Surely the calm which gradually came over my whole inward frame was immediately from Him Who rebukes the winds and the waves,-for I was calm; and I stood up to commence the services of the day as if One stood by my side and strengthened me. It seemed to me, from time to time, as if the breathings of a still, small voice came close to me with these words of strong assurance: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." And now the blessed labours of the day are over, I sit alone in this silent room, and I think on the mercies of my God to me this day. My strength has been, I now see, that sense of entire dependence upon Him which kept me, as it were, clinging to the arm which upheld me, looking to the eye which directed me, and calling to Him from the depths of my soul, Now, gracious Lord, give me more light; now, Lord, put forth Thy strength. Ah, I begin to comprehend those wonderful words: "Strengthened with might, by Thy Spirit, in the inner man." They have become a reality to me. I preached, in the morning, on this Scripture: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God,

who loved me, and gave Himself for me.". Gal. ii. 20.

At the evening service my text was from the Psalms: "Thy Word is very pure, therefore Thy servant loveth it." I think that every word I spoke to my people came glowing with the warmth of my own heart; but I could not, and I did not, refer to myself. I had well-nigh fallen into the snare; for truly it was from God's dealings with my own heart, that I had learnt to speak of His dealings with the hearts of others. This had not been the case with me before. I had often preached; but I had not, and I could not, have spoken, or preached, that which I knew, or testified that which I had seen. My mind had exercised itself with weaving together a certain set of ideas, partly spun out of my own brain, partly borrowed from the brains of others, into as delicate a web as I could fabricate.

How well, indeed, do I remember the way in which I set to work when composing my sermons; the care that I took to shape some dull abstraction into a kind of polished essay; and, after I had completed the vapid and unmeaning effusion, I sought for some text of Scripture to serve merely as a peg to hang the flimsy production upon. Sometimes I attempted a laboured argument, sometimes a pathetic appeal to the feelings; but oh! the conscience was overlooked, the souls of my hearers starved! That name, which is the only prevailing name with God,-the only way of salvation to sinners, was scarcely, or ever, mentioned. And so far from setting forth the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the only power by which we are enabled to realize the things of God, I omitted it altogether; and if I thought about it at all, it was only to repudiate it as the mystical fancy of enthusiasts. It is said of Whitefield, that every sermon that he preached was first preached and prayed over on his

knees. Who then can wonder that our gracious Lord has made the preaching so acceptable, and so successful, when we know that the preacher's chief desire, and constant aim, is to honour Him, and to hang, as it were, in entire dependence upon Him."

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

THE PASTOR'S WIFE.

[From Lady Vernon to Miss Harcourt.]

My dear friend,-Two months ago, had any one told me that I should ever hold a pen in my fingers again, I should have shook my head, and answered, -never. I have been brought down, almost to the borders of the grave, by a low fever, followed by great exhaustion. But it has been ordered otherwise by the great Disposer of all. I am fast recovering. I owe my restoration to health, under God, chiefly to the tender care and watchfulness of a young kinswoman of mine, who has now been my guest for some length of time. She came to me, little thinking that her visit would impose upon her the office of a nurse. I was in my usual state of health when she came, and I was anxious to make her stay as agreeable as possible to her; but the dear child had scarcely been in the house a fortnight, when I took cold in one of our long pleasant drives, and was, in consequence, laid up with a fever, which affected this poor old frame of mine so sensibly, that the doctors had, for some days, no thought of my recovery. At the height of the dis

saw,

order, I was delirious for some length of time; and the first person whom I saw, when I was able to notice anything, was my poor Lucy sitting by my bed-side, and smiling sweetly upon me. She had been, all the while, my watchful and tender nurse; tending me night and day, without a thought of herself. I would have sent her off to bed,—for I from her pale face, how wearied and exhausted she was, but, holding up her finger, to forbid me the exertion of speaking, she told me that anxiety, not fatigue, had tired her; and that the joy of witnessing my returning health would soon restore her. The next day, but not before,-I prevailed on her to take a few hours' repose in her own room. Afterwards, however, she had a bed made up for herself in my dressing-room, and there she slept till she left me. She went this morning at an early hour; and I have felt her absence keenly, for she has wound herself round my heart.

What a different person I had expected. She had been one of the maids of honour to our late Queen; and I thought to find in her a fine lady of the court, with all kinds of modish airs about her. I was most agreeably disappointed. She had not been spoilt, though for two years living in a dangerous atmosphere. The first thing that struck me in her, was her charming naïveté, and even playfulness, which owes its chief attraction to her unaffected modesty and propriety. In my younger days I was much in the world, and had many opportunities of judging character; but I have seldom met with so sweet a young woman, or one so perfectly feminine, as Lucy Harington. I must own that, in my eyes, our sex has lost almost its chief natural grace, when a woman is not feminine. I soon found myself taking a deep interest in my young kinswoman. I found she had received a solid education; and, with all her light playfulness, (mark