MRS. SUSANNAH FOWLER,

BESWICK.

MRS. FOWLER was born in the town of Keighley, Yorkshire, in the year 1804; at the age of sixteen she became a member of the Wesleyan Society, joining the class which met in her father's house, of which class she continued a member until the year 1846, when with her family she came to live in Manchester. Here she joined our then little Church, worshipping in Piercy Street. She at once opened her house for religious services; one of the classes began to meet there, and has been continued there during thirty years. Mrs. Fowler was of considerable help to the leader of the class and to the whole Church, visiting the absent, encouraging the hesitating, comforting the afflicted, and watching by the dying. Numerous are the touching and striking incidents told of her watchful zeal and untiring devotion to the cause of Christ. Many thankfully cherish the memory of her cheerful self-denial and kindly sympathising spirit. She did not slothfully linger until urged to Christian work, but sought out spheres of usefulness, and entered most heartily into evangelistic labour. And this was continued up to the very close of life. Only the day before her death, although in feebleness and suffering, she told me "that she had thought out a plan by which she believed the debt on our dear chapel might be reduced, and she hoped the Lord would raise her up to carry out the plan to a successful issue." And then she added, "It seems a strange request for an aged woman over seventy years old, but I want to do something more for my Lord; I seem to have done nothing-nothing at all compared with His great love to me. Living or dying, I am the Lord's." On May 5th, 1875, she died in the full triumph of the faith. A funeral sermon was preached by her class leader, Mr. Abel, to a large and deeply affected congregation.

The members of the Beswick Society are now erecting a suitable monument over the grave as an expression of their esteem and affection for one so "worthy of honourable mention." S.

MRS. HANNAH WRIGHT,

WIDOW of the late Mr. George Wright, of Jesmond Vale, near Newcastleon-Tyne, died on the 7th of December, 1875, in the seventy-eighth year of her age. She had been for many years a steady and consistent member of the Church. Her declining years were filled with the experience of infirmities and pain, but she was endued with the grace of patience, so that she bore without murmuring the burden allotted to her. The last enemy came to her as a friend, releasing her from her mortal and frail tabernacle, and admitting her into the heavenly home, to share the blessedness of them who die in the Lord. W.

MR. DAVID WRIGG,

AMBLER THORN, HALIFAX NORTH CIRCUIT.

OUR brother died at the ripe age of eighty years, and was highly esteemed by all who knew him for his long life of Christian consistency and usefulness. The precise date of his conversion is not known; but it is well known that for fifty-three years at least he lived in the enjoyment of religion and honoured it by a good life. He often visited the sick and dying, attended regularly the means of grace, and toiled and prayed with deep solicitude for the conversion of sinners and the prosperity of the Church. His class-members, over whom he was leader for forty years, had

a strong affection for him, and constantly profited by his simple and earnest counsels in the class-meeting. Many ministers and friends in the Connexion will remember him as the sexton of Ambler Thorn Chapel, an office which he held for thirty-four years. He lived in the faithful discharge of all his duties; he died on September 15th, 1875, calmly and consciously resting his soul on Jesus, and often speaking to the friends who visited him in his last hours of his sure hope of eternal life.

G.

MR. ALDERMAN MARSDEN,

LEEDS.

We record with sorrow the death of this gentleman, who expired suddenly of heart-disease on the morning of January 19th.

The Leeds Mercury, in a warmly commendatory notice of the deceased, says, "A life well spent has been suddenly closed, but the memory of that life will be cherished for years to come by a far wider circle than that of the deceased's own household, and there will be for those whose sorrow is a personal one the sad consolation that the warm sympathies of every Leeds man, woman and child-we might say every Yorkshireman-will be extended to give them in the hope that it may assuage their grief, and make their great trouble the easier to bear."

Family Treasury.

DEATH OF LITTLE CHILDREN.

IN His moral tillage God cultivates many flowers, seemingly only for their exquisite beauty and fragrance. For when_bathed in soft sunshine they have burst into blossoms, then the Divine Hand gathers them from the earthly fields to be kept in crystal vases in blessed mansions above. Thus little children die-some in the sweet bud, some in the fuller blossom; but never to early too make heaven fairer and sweeter with their immortal bloom.

Verily, to the eye of faith nothing is fairer than the death of young children. Sight and sense indeed recoil from it. The flower that, like a breathing rose, filled heart and home with an exquisite delight, alas! we are stricken with sore anguish to find its stem broken and the blossom gone. But unto faith, eagle-eyed beyond mental vision, and winged to mount like the singing lark over the fading rainbow into the blue heaven, even this is touchingly lovely.

The child's earthly ministry was well done, for the rose does its work as grandly in blossom as the vine with its fruit. And having helped to sanctify and lift heavenward the very hearts that break at its farewell, it has gone from this troublous sphere ere the winds chilled or the rains stained it, leaving the world it blessed and the skies through which it passed still sweet with its lingering fragrance, to its glory as an everunfolding flower in the blessed garden of God! Surely prolonged life on earth hath no boon like this? For such mortal loveliness to put on immortality to rise from the carnal with so little memory of earth that the mother's cradle seemed to have been rocked in the house of many mansions -to have no experience of a wearied limb and chilled affections, but from a child's joyous heart growing into the power of an archangelic intellect

125

to be raptured as a blessed babe through the gates of Paradise! Ah! this is better than to watch as an old prophet for the car of fire in the valley of

Jordan.

Surely God is wise in all his works. And even amid our tears will we rejoice in this harvest feast, that among us, as elsewhere, he gathers so largely "the flowers in their season."

And of flowers, so of fruits in their order, and after their kind each "cometh in his season." Some fruits ripen early. Scarcely has the delicious June poured its full glory over ere some rare and delicate species are already ripened. And some ripen later. There are trees that do not even blossom all midsummer. And there are fruits that remain hard and unsavoury till God shakes them in the wild autumnal wind, and treats them with the distressful ministry of frost. And so is it in the spiritual-souls develop and mature differently. Some are ready for gathering at life's early summer, and some come not to the earing till the time of the latter come in his season." rain. And God watches carefully that each shall " We indeed sometimes talk of "untimely deaths" of young Christians, removed too early from spheres of usefulness, as if the Omniscient Husbandman did not know when his immortal grapes are purple, and his corn in the ear. Surely God does the whole thing wisely, gathering each spiritual growth just as it comes into condition for its immortal uses.

Oh, thought beautiful and comforting! Death is not destruction but harvesting-the gathering from fields of mortal tillage ripe fruits in their season. And why, then, should our harvest feast be sad over garnered immortality? Why should this sweetly tolling bell, filling their troubled earthly airs with a gentle sound, so startle and appal the trustful spirit? Oh, ye sad mourners over beloved graves, that by reason of bereavement can hardly find it in your heart this day to be grateful, and to whom our hymn of thanksgiving hath the seeming of a requiem for the dead! God strengthen your faith so to behold this mysterious thing in a light from heaven that its dark veil shail seem transparent, and a face with soft eyes looks forth loving and bright as the face of an angel.

Death is not destruction! Death is not even decay! Death is harvesting! Hear ye this, oh, disconsolate heart! Ye parents from whose bouseholds sweet children have been rudely parted, hear ye this: "The beloved hath gone into His garden to gather lilies." Ye children who have lost revered parents, and whose life is chilled in the shadow of that dread thing-orphanage-hear ye this: "As a shock of corn cometh in his season, so are matured souls gathered in the garden of God."

WOMAN IN ADVERSITY.

"ADVERSITY sets off the beauties of the female character to the greatest advantage. When it sets in, a true woman can accommodate herself to the She uses every changes it entails with far greater adaptability than men. stratagem, and exerts every effort to make things look pleasant and comfortable still-pinching herself to the very utmost without a single regret, and exhibiting an amount of self-denial which might well cause us of the Fresterner sex to blush. Hope is also a remarkable feature in woman. quently, when man is at the brink of despair, and only hears the ominous gurgles of its deep, dark waters, her cheerful words, hopeful promptings, and sunny smiles, lead him back to some green oasis of delightful anticipation. By this means many a worn and wearied heart has been sustained and tided over the shoals and reefs which beset it. In sickness, as I have already remarked, all know that woman's care and sympathy are invaluable

to mind and body. From the cradle to the grave that wondrous heart of womankind is lavish of its treasures to the helpless and distressed. She is in very truth the angel of suffering humanity, a reflex of God Himself, and we may rest assured that her deeds are registered in that Eternal Volume wherein the Most High hath caused to be entered the heart-histories of the world we live in."-St. James's Magazine.

MY CHILD ABOVE.

SAD, sad with love-a mother's love-
O'erflows the brimming heart
With thoughts of thee, my child
above,

Who did'st so soon depart.

An untouched drawer of little things,
Thy jacket, hat, and all,
The wee bit pocket filled with strings,
Now made into a ball.

The tiny muslin ruffle smart,

Thou looked'st so bonny in,

Now calls thy bright smile to my heart,

So full of power to win.

Thy little shoes that trotted here
So often by my side,

Bring back no more the footsteps
dear

Of my sweet one that died.

I hear no more the laugh of glee
That rang like music wild,

When I would romp and sing for
thee,

My blessed angel child.

Again, again, thy silv'ry voice
Oft echoed in my ear,
And often did my heart rejoice
Thy joyous laugh to hear.

But now no more I feel such joy,
Thus parted, love, from thee;
Thy little things, my darling boy,
Show thou art lost to me.

But when I wing my way on high,
To seek my little dove,
Oh, joy! I'll find him in the sky,
Chanting redeeming love.

To anyone anxious to know the secret of Mr. Ruskin's clearness and beauty of style, we would point out the following little bit of autobiography in the Fors Clavigera: Mr. Ruskin, in continuing his autobiography, notes especially "how much I owe to my mother for having so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make me grasp them in what my correspondent would call their concrete whole'; and, above all, taught me to reverence them as transcending all thought, and ordaining all conduct. This she effected, not by her own sayings or personal authority, but simply by compelling me to read the book thoroughly for myself. As soon as I was able to read with fluency she began a course of Bible work with me, which never ceased till I went to Oxford. She read alternate verses with me, watching at first every intonation of my voice, and correcting the false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly and energetically. It might be beyond me altogether; that she did not care about; but she made sure that as soon as I got hold of it at all I should get hold of it by the right end. In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, and went straight through to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers, Levitical law and all; and began again at Genesis next day : if a name was hard the better the exercise in pronunciation; if a chapter was tiresome, the better lesson in patience; if loathsome, the better the lesson in faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken. After our chapters (from two to three a day, according to their length, the first thing after breakfast, and no interruption from servants allowed-none from visitors, who either joined in the reading or had to stay upstairs-and none from any visitings or excursions, except real travelling), I had to learn a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I had not lost something of what was already known;

and, with the chapters above enumerated, I had to learn the whole body of the fine old Scotch paraphrases, which are good, melodious, and forceful verse; and to which, together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear in sound. It is strange that, of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my child's mind, chiefly repulsive-the 119th Psalm-has now become of all the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the law of God."

MR. GLADSTONE ON THE SABBATH.

In reply to a request made by Mr. Hill, of the Working Men's Lord's Day Association, to Mr. Gladstone, to write an introduction to a prize essay on the subject of "Sabbath Rest," the ex-Premier wrote the following letter:

"SIR,-I regret that I am unable, from the pressure of other duties, to enter further into the subject of your letter than to congratulate you on the distinction you have obtained, and to express my hearty good wishes for the design of your essay. Believing in the authority of the Lord's Day as a religious institution, I must, as a matter of course, desire the recognition of that authority by others; but over and above this, I have myself in the course of a laborious life signally experienced both its mental and its physical benefits. I can hardly overrate its value in this view; and for the interest of the working men of this country, alike in these and in other yet higher respects, there is nothing I more anxiously desire than that they should more and more highly appreciate the Christian day of rest.—I remain, sir, your faithful servant, "W. E. GLADSTONE.

"Hawarden, January 13."

LONG AND SHORT SERMONS.

In the Sword and Trowel Mr. Spurgeon writes, under the head of "Personal Recollections": "We had heard of Dr. Brock a story of his youth, and we at dinner-time inquired as to its truthfulness; and he replied, 'Oh, yes; that's right enough. It seems that John Angell James, of Birmingham, remarked in company that the longest sermon he had ever preached was in a town in Devonshire, where he had held forth for more than two hours; but, he added, 'I never could make out how it was, for I had no intention of being so long; it seemed as if the time would not go, and yet, when I came to look at my watch, it had gone, and I had actually preached two hours.' Dr. Brock remarked that he could explain the riddle, for, being a lad at the time mentioned, and wishing to hear as much as possible of the good divine, he had taken a key with him, and, sitting at the back of the clock, had managed to stop it every now and then, and so decrease the speed of time, and lengthen the sermon. 'Ah, William Brock,' said Mr. James, 'you were full of fun then, and I fear it is not all gone out of you now. I dare say you would do the same again if you had the opportunity.' The company were not a little amused when William Brock replied most decidedly that he would do nothing of the kind; that the production of a long sermon was the act of his youth and inexperience, and that now, with the key in his hand, he would be far more likely to put on the hand and cut the sermon short than in any way to prolong it."