The Life of Col. James Gardiner Part 5

Then, after the mention of some other particulars, he adds:--

"Blessed and adored for ever be the holy name of my Heavenly Father, who holds my soul in life, and my body in perfect health! Were I to recount his mercy and goodness to me even in the midst of all these hurries, I should never have done. I hope your Master will still encourage you in his work, and make you a blessing to many. My dearest friend, I am much more yours than I can express, and shall remain so while I am J.G."

In this correspondence I had a further opportunity of discovering that humble resignation to the will of G.o.d which made so amiable a part of his character, and of which I had before seen so many instances. He speaks, in the letter from which I have just been giving an extract, of the hope he had expressed in a former of seeing us again that winter; and he adds:--

"To be sure, it would have been a great pleasure to me; but we poor mortals form projects, and the Almighty ruler of the universe disposes of all as he pleases. A great many of us were getting ready for our return to England, when we received an order to march towards Frankfort, to the great surprise of the whole army, neither can any of us comprehend what we are to do there; for there is no enemy in that country, the French army being marched into Bavaria, where I am sure we cannot follow them.

But it is the will of the Lord, and his will be done! I desire to bless and praise my Heavenly Father that I am entirely resigned to it. It is no matter where I go, or what becomes of me, so that G.o.d may be glorified in my life, or my death, I should rejoice much to hear that all my friends were equally resigned."

The mention of this article reminds me of another relating to the views which he had of obtaining a regiment for himself. He endeavoured to deserve it by the most faithful services; some of them, indeed beyond what the strength of his const.i.tution could well bear--for the weather in some of these marches proved exceedingly bad, and yet he would be always at the head of his people, that he might look, with the exactest care, to every thing that concerned them. This obliged him to neglect the beginnings of a feverish illness, the natural consequence of which was that it grew very formidable, forced a long confinement upon him, and gave animal nature a shock which it never recovered.

In the mean time, as he had the promise of a regiment before he quitted England, his friends were continually expecting an occasion of congratulating him on having received the command of one. Still they were disappointed, and on some of them the disappointment seemed to sit heavy.

As for the colonel himself, he seemed quite easy about it, and appeared much greater in that easy situation of mind than the highest military honours and preferments could have made him. With great pleasure do I at this moment recollect the unaffected serenity, and even indifference, with which he expresses himself upon this occasion, in a letter to me, dated about the beginning of April, 1743.

"The disappointment of a regiment is nothing to me, for I am satisfied that, had it been for G.o.d's glory, I should have had it, and I should have been sorry to have had it on any other terms. My Heavenly Father has bestowed upon me infinitely more than if he had made me emperor of the whole world."

I find several parallel expressions in other letters, and those to his lady about the same time were just in the same strain. In an extract from one which was written from Aix-la-Chapelle, April 21, the same year, I meet with these words:

"People here imagine I must be sadly troubled that I have not got a regiment, (for six out of seven vacant are now disposed of): but they are strangely mistaken, for it has given me no sort of trouble. My Heavenly Father knows what is best for me; and blessed and ever adored be his name, he has given me an entire resignation to his will. Besides, I do not know that I met with any disappointment, since I was a Christian, but it pleased G.o.d to discover to me that it was plainly for my advantage, by bestowing something better upon me afterwards, many instances of which I am able to produce; and therefore I should be the greatest of monsters, if I did not trust in him."

I should be guilty of a great omission, if I were not to add how remarkably the event corresponded with his faith on this occasion; for whereas he had no intimation or expectation of any thing more than a regiment of foot, his Majesty was pleased, out of his great goodness, to give him a regiment of dragoons which was then quartered in his own neighborhood. It is properly remarked by the reverend and worthy person through whose hand this letter was transmitted to me, that when the colonel thus expressed himself, he could have no prospect of what he afterwards so soon obtained, as General Bland's regiment, to which he was advanced, was only vacant on the 19th of April--that is, two days before the date of this letter, when it was impossible he should have any notice of that vacancy. It also deserves observation, that some few days after the colonel was thus unexpectedly promoted to the command of these dragoons, Lord Cornwallis's regiment of foot, then in Flanders, became vacant. Now, had this happened before his promotion to General Bland's, Colonel Gardiner, in all probability, would only have had that regiment of foot, and so would have continued in Flanders. When the affair was settled, he informs Lady Frances of it in a letter dated from a village near Frankfort, 3d May, in which he refers to his former of the 21st of April, observing how remarkably it was verified "in G.o.d's having given him" (for so he expressed it, agreeably to the views which he continually maintained of the universal agency of Divine Providence) "what he had no expectation of, and what was so much better than that which he had missed--a regiment of dragoons quartered at his own door."

CHAPTER XII.

RETURN TO ENGLAND.

It appeared to him that by this remarkable event Providence called him home. Accordingly, though he had other preferments offered him in the army, he chose to return, and I believe the more willingly, as he did not expect there would have been an action. Just at this time it pleased G.o.d to give him an awful instance of the uncertainty of human prospects and enjoyments, by that violent fever which seized him at Ghent on his way to England, and perhaps the more severely for the efforts he made to push on his journey, though he had for some days been much indisposed. It was, I think, one of the first fits of severe illness he had ever met with, and he was ready to look upon it as a sudden call into eternity; but it gave him no painful alarm in that view. He committed himself to the G.o.d of his life, and in a few weeks he was so well recovered as to be capable of pursuing his journey, though not without difficulty. I cannot but think it might have conduced much to a more perfect recovery than he ever attained, to have allowed himself a longer repose, in order to recruit his exhausted strength and spirits. But there was an activity in his temper not easy to be restrained, and it was now stimulated, not only with a desire to see his friends, but of being with his regiment, that he might omit nothing in his power to regulate their morals and their discipline, and to form them for public service. Accordingly, about the middle of June, 1743, he pa.s.sed through London, where he had the honour of waiting on their royal highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and of receiving from both the most obliging token of favour and esteem.

He arrived at Northampton on Monday the 21st of June, and spent part of three days there. But the great pleasure which his return and preferment gave us, was much abated by observing his countenance so sadly altered, and the many marks of languor and remaining disorder which evidently appeared, so that he really looked ten years older than he had done ten months before. I had, however, a satisfaction sufficient to counterbalance much of the concern which this alteration gave me, in a renewed opportunity of observing, indeed more sensibly than ever, in how remarkable a degree he was dead to the enjoyments and views of this mortal life. When I congratulated him on the favourable appearances of Providence for him in the late event, he briefly told me the remarkable circ.u.mstances that attended it, with the most genuine expressions of grat.i.tude to G.o.d for them; but added, "that as his account was increased with his income, power, influence, and his cares were proportionably increased too, it was, as to his own personal concern, much the same to him whether he had remained in his former station, or been elevated to this; but that if G.o.d should by this means honour him as an instrument of doing more good than he could otherwise have done, he should rejoice in it."

I perceived that the near views he had taken of eternity, in the illness from which he was then so imperfectly recovered, had not in the least alarmed him; but that he would have been entirely willing, had such been the determination of G.o.d, to have been cut short in a foreign land, without any earthly friend near him, and in the midst of a journey undertaken with hopes and prospects so pleasing to nature, which appeared to me no inconsiderable evidence of the strength of his faith. But we shall wonder the less at this extraordinary resignation, if we consider the joyful and a.s.sured prospect which he had of a happiness infinitely superior beyond the grave; of which that worthy minister of the church of Scotland, who had an opportunity of conversing with him quickly after his return, and having the memorable story of his conversion from his own mouth, (as I have hinted above,) writes thus in his letter to me, dated Jan. 14, 1746-7:

"When he came to review his regiment at Linlithgow, in summer 1743, after having given me the wonderful story as above, he concluded in words to this purpose: Let me die whenever it shall please G.o.d, or wherever it shall be, I am sure I shall go to the mansions of eternal glory, and enjoy my G.o.d and my Redeemer in heaven for ever."

While he was with us at this time he appeared deeply affected with the sad state of things as to religion and morals, and seemed to apprehend that the rod of G.o.d was hanging over so sinful a nation. He observed a great deal of disaffection which the enemies of the government had, by a variety of artifices, been raising in Scotland for some years; and the number of Jacobites there, together with the defenceless state in which our island then was, with respect to the number of its forces at home, (of which he spoke at once with great concern and astonishment,) led him to expect an invasion from France, and an attempt in favour of the Pretender, much sooner than it happened. I have heard him often say, many years before it came so near being accomplished, "that a few thousands might have a fair chance for marching from Edinburgh to London uncontrolled, and throw the whole Kingdom into an astonishment." And I have great reason to believe that this was one main consideration which engaged him to make such haste to his regiment, then quartered in those parts, as he imagined there was not a spot of ground where he might be more likely to have a call to expose his life in the service of his country, and perhaps, by appealing on a proper call early in its defences, be instrumental in suppressing the beginnings of most formidable mischief. How rightly he judged in these things, the event too evidently showed.

The evening before our last separation, as I knew I could not more agreeably entertain the valuable friend who was then my guest, I preached a sermon in my own house, with some peculiar reference to his case and circ.u.mstances, from those ever-memorable words, than which I have never felt any more powerful and more comfortable: Psalm xci. 14, 15, 16, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him, and honour him: with long life (or length of days) will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." This scripture could not but lend our meditations to survey the character of the good man, as one who so knows the name of the blessed G.o.d--has such a deep apprehension of the glories and perfections of his nature--as determinately to set his love upon him, to make him the supreme object of his most ardent and constant affection.

And it suggested the most sublime and animating hopes to persons of such a character, that their prayers shall be always acceptable to G.o.d; that though they may, and must, be called to their share in the troubles and calamities of life, yet they may a.s.sure themselves of the divine presence in all, which will issue in their deliverance, in their exaltation, sometimes in distinguished honour and esteem among men, and, it may be, in a long course of useful and happy years on earth; at least, which shall undoubtedly end in seeing, to their perpetual delight, the complete salvation of G.o.d, in a world where they shall enjoy length of days for ever and ever, and employ them all in adoring the great Author of their salvation and felicity. It is evident that these natural thoughts on such a Scripture were matters of universal concern. Yet had I, as a minister of the gospel, known that this was the last time I should address Colonel Gardiner, and had I foreseen the scenes through which G.o.d was about to lead him, I hardly know what considerations I could have suggested with more peculiar propriety. The attention, elevation, and delight with which he heard them, were very apparent, and the pleasure which the observation of it gave me, continues to this moment.

Let me be permitted to digress so far as to add, that this is indeed the great support of a Christian minister under the many discouragements and disappointments which he meets with in his attempts to fix upon the profligate or the thoughtless part of mankind a deep sense of religious truth; that there is another important part of his work in which he may hope to be more generally successful; as, by plain, artless, but serious discourses, the great principles of Christian duty and hope may be nourished and invigorated in good men, their graces watered as at the root, and their souls animated, both to persevere and improve in holiness. When we are effectually performing such benevolent offices, so well suiting our immortal natures, to persons whose hearts are cemented with ours in the hands of the most endearing and sacred friendship, it is too little to say that it overpays the fatigue of our Labours; it even swallows up all sense of it in the most rational and sublime pleasure.

An incident occurred that evening, which, at least for the oddness of it, may deserve a place in these memoirs. I had then with me one Thomas Porter, a poor but very honest and religious man, (now living at Hatfield Broad-Oak in Ess.e.x,) who is quite unacquainted with letters, so as not to be able to distinguish one from another, yet is master of the contents of the Bible in so extraordinary a degree, that he has not only fixed an immense number of texts in his memory, but, merely by hearing them quoted in sermons, has registered there the chapter and verse in which these pa.s.sages are to be found. This is attended with a marvellous facility in directing readers to turn to them, and a most unaccountable talent of fixing on such as suit almost every imaginable variety of circ.u.mstances in common life. There are in this case two considerations that make it the more wonderful; the one, that he is a person of very low genius, having, besides a stammering which makes his speech almost unintelligible to strangers, so wild and awkward a manner of behaviour, that he is frequently taken for an idiot, and seems in many things to be indeed so;--the other, that he grew up to manhood in a very licentious course of living, and an entire ignorance of divine things, so that all these exact impressions on his memory have been made in his riper years. I thought it would not be disagreeable to the colonel to introduce to him this odd phenomenon, which many hundreds of people have had a curiosity to examine; and, among all the strange things I have seen in him, I never remember any that equalled what pa.s.sed on this occasion. On hearing the colonel's profession, and receiving some hints of his religious character, he ran through a vast variety of scriptures, beginning at the Pentateuch and going on to the Revelation, relating either to the dependence to be fixed on G.o.d for the success of military preparations, or to the instances and promises occurring there for his care of good men in the most imminent dangers, or to the encouragement to despise perils and death, while engaged in a good cause, and supported by the views of a happy immortality. I believe he quoted more than twenty of these pa.s.sages, and I must freely own that I know not who could have chosen them with greater propriety. If my memory deceive me not, the last of this catalogue was that from which I afterwards preached, on the lamented occasion of this great man's fall: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." We were all astonished at so remarkable a feat, and I question not but many of my readers will think the memory of it worthy of being thus preserved.

But to return to my main subject: The day after the sermon and conversation of which I have been speaking, I took my best leave of my inestimable friend, after attending him some part of his way northward.

The first stage of our journey was to the cottage of that poor but religious family which I had before occasion to mention as relieved, and indeed in a great measure subsisted by his charity. Nothing could be more delightful than to observe the condescension with which he conversed with these his humble pensioners. We there put up our last united prayers together; and he afterwards expressed, in the strongest terms I have ever heard him use on such an occasion, the singular pleasure with which he had joined in them. Indeed it was no small satisfaction to me to have an opportunity of recommending such a valuable friend to the divine protection and blessing, with that particular freedom and enlargement on what was peculiar in his circ.u.mstances, which hardly any other situation, unless we had been quite alone, could so conveniently have admitted.

We went from thence to the table of a person of distinction in the neighborhood, where he had an opportunity of showing in how decent and graceful a manner he could unite the Christian and the gentleman, and give conversation an improving and religious turn, without violating any of the rules of polite behaviour, or saying or doing any thing, which looked at all constrained or affected. Here we took our last embrace, committing each other to the care of the G.o.d of heaven; and the colonel pursued his journey to the north, where he spent the remainder of his days.

The more I reflect upon this appointment of Providence, the more I discern the beauty and wisdom of it--not only as it led directly to that glorious period of life with which G.o.d had determined to honour him, and in which, I think, it becomes all his friends to rejoice, but also as the retirement on which he entered could not but have a happy tendency to favour his more immediate and complete preparation for so speedy a remove. To this we may add, that it must probably have a very powerful influence to promote the interests of religion (incomparably the greatest of all interests) among the members of his own family, who must surely be edified by such daily lessons as they received from his lips, when they saw them ill.u.s.trated and enforced by so admirable an example, and for two complete years. It is the more remarkable, as I cannot find from the memoirs of his life in my hands that he had ever been so long at home since he had a family, or indeed, from his childhood, ever so long at a time in any one place.

With how clear a l.u.s.tre his lamp shone, and with what holy vigour his loins were girded up in the service of his G.o.d in these his latter days, I learn in part from the letters of several excellent persons in the ministry, or in secular life, with whom I have since conversed or corresponded. In his many letters dated from Bankton during this period, I have still further evidence how happy he was amidst those infirmities of body, which his tenderness for me would seldom allow him to mention; for it appears from them what a daily intercourse he kept up with Heaven, and what delightful communion with G.o.d crowned his attendance on public ordinances, and his sweet hours of devout retirement. He mentions his sacramental opportunities with peculiar relish, crying out, as in a holy rapture, in reference to one and another of them, "Oh how gracious a Master do we serve! how pleasant is his service; how rich the entertainments of his love! yet how poor and cold are our services!" But I will not multiply quotations of this sort after those I have given above, which may be a sufficient specimen of many more in the same strain. This hint may suffice to show that the same ardour of soul held out in a great measure to the last; and indeed it seems that towards the close of life, like the flame of a lamp almost expiring, it sometimes exerted an unusual blaze.

He spent much of his time at Bankton in religious solitude; and one most intimately conversant with him a.s.sures me that the traces of that delightful converse with G.o.d which he enjoyed in it might easily be discerned in the solemn yet cheerful countenance with which he often came out of his closet. Yet his exercises there must sometimes have been very mournful, considering the melancholy views which he had of the state of our public affairs.

"I should be glad," says he, (in a letter which he sent me about the close of the year 1743,) "to hear what wise and good people among you think of the present circ.u.mstances of things. For my own part, though I thank G.o.d I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalency of almost all kinds of wickedness amongst us--the natural consequence of the contempt of the gospel. I am daily offering my prayers to G.o.d for this sinful land of ours, over which his judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears, which I pour out before G.o.d on this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I arise from my knees."

If we have many remaining to stand in the breach with equal fervency, I hope, crying as our provocations are, that G.o.d will still be entreated for us, and save us.

Most of the other letters I had the pleasure of receiving from him after our last separation, are either filled, like those of former years, with tender expressions of affectionate solicitude for my domestic comfort and public usefulness, or relate to the writings I published during this time, or to the affairs of his eldest son, then under my care. But these are things which are by no means of a nature to be communicated here. It is enough to remark, in general, that the Christian was still mingled with all the care of the friend and the parent.

CHAPTER XIII.

REVIVAL OF RELIGION.

But I think it inc.u.mbent upon me to observe, that during this time, and for some preceding years, his attention, ever wakeful to such concerns, was much engaged by some religious appearances which happened about this time both in England and Scotland, and with regard to which some may be curious to know the colonel's sentiments. He communicated them to me with the most unreserved freedom; and I cannot apprehend myself under any engagement to conceal them, as I am persuaded that it will be no prejudice to his memory that they should be publicly known.

It was from Colonel Gardiner's pen that I received the first notice of that ever memorable scene which was opened at Kilsyth, under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. M'Culloch in the month of February, 1741-2. He communicated to me the copy of two letters from that eminently-favoured servant of G.o.d, giving an account of that extraordinary success which had within a few days accompanied his preaching, when, as I remember, in a little more than a fortnight, one hundred and thirty souls, who had before continued in long insensibility under the faithful preaching of the gospel, were awakened on a sudden to attend to it, as if it had been a new revelation brought down from heaven, and attested by as astonishing miracles as ever were wrought by Peter or Paul, though they only heard it from a person under whose ministry they had sat for several years. Struck with a power and majesty in the word of G.o.d which they had never felt before, they crowded his house night and day, making their applications to him for spiritual direction and a.s.sistance, with an earnestness and solicitude which floods of tears and cries, that swallowed up their own words and his, could not sufficiently express. The colonel mentioned this at first to me "as matter of eternal praise, which he knew would rejoice my very soul;" and when he saw it spread in the neighbouring parts, and observed the glorious reformation which it produced in the lives of great mult.i.tudes, and the abiding fruits of it, for succeeding months and years, it increased and confirmed his joy. But the facts relating to this matter have been laid before the world in so authentic a manner, and the agency of divine grace in them has been so rationally vindicated, and so pathetically represented, in what the reverend and judicious Mr. Webster has written upon that subject, that it is altogether superfluous for me to add any thing further than my hearty prayers that the work may be as extensive as it was glorious and divine.[*]

[*Note: See "Revivals in Scotland," published by the Board of Publication.]

It was with great pleasure that he received any intelligence of a like kind from England, whether the clergy of the Established Church or dissenting ministers, whether our own countrymen or foreigners, were the instruments of it. Whatever weaknesses or errors might mingle themselves with valuable qualities in such as were active in such a work, he appeared to love and honour them in proportion to the degree he saw reason to believe that their hearts were devoted to the service of Christ, and their attempts owned and succeeded by him. I remember, that mentioning one of these gentlemen who had been remarkably successful in his ministry, and who seemed to have met with some very unkind usage, he says, "I had rather be that despised, persecuted man, to be an instrument in the hand of the Spirit in converting so many souls, and building up so many in their holy faith, than I would be emperor of the whole world."

Yet this steady and judicious Christian, (for such he most a.s.suredly was,) at the same time that he esteemed a man for his good intentions, and his worthy qualities, did not suffer himself to be hurried away into all the singularity of his sentiments, or to admire his imprudences or excesses. On the contrary, he saw and lamented that artifice which the great father of fraud has so long and so successfully been practising, and who, like the enemies of Israel, when he cannot entirely prevent the building of G.o.d's temple, does, as it were, offer his a.s.sistance to carry on the work, that he may thereby get the most effectual opportunities of obstructing it. The colonel often expressed his astonishment at the wide extremes into which some whom on the whole he thought very worthy men, were permitted to run in many doctrinal and speculative points, and discerned how evidently it appeared from hence that we cannot argue the truth of any doctrine from the success of the preacher, since this would be a kind of demonstration which might equally prove both parts of a contradiction. Yet when he observed that a high regard to the atonement and righteousness of Christ, and to the free grace of G.o.d in him, exerted by the operation of the Divine Spirit, was generally common to all who had been peculiarly successful in the conversion and reformation of men, (how widely soever their judgments might differ in other points, and how warmly soever their judgments might oppose each other in consequence of that diversity,) it tended greatly to confirm his faith in these principles, as well as to open his heart in love to all, of every denomination, who maintained an affectionate regard to them. Although what he remarked as to the conduct and success of ministers of the most opposite strains of preaching confirmed him in these sentiments, yet he always esteemed and loved virtuous and benevolent men, even where he thought them the most mistaken in the notions they formed of religion, or in the methods by which they attempted to serve it.

While I thus represent what all who knew him must soon have observed of Colonel Gardiner's affectionate regard to these peculiar doctrines of our holy religion, it is necessary that I should also inform my reader that it was not his opinion that the attention of ministers or their hearers should be wholly engrossed by these, excellent as they are; but that all the parts of the scheme of truth and duty should be regarded in their due connection and proportion. Far from that distempered taste which can bear nothing but cordials, it was his deliberate judgment that the law as well as the gospel should be preached; and hardly any thing gave him greater offence than the irreverent manner in which some who have been ignorantly extolled as the most zealous evangelical preachers, have sometimes been tempted to speak of the former, much indeed to the scandal of all consistent and judicious Christians. He delighted to be instructed in his duty, and to hear much of the inward exercises of the spiritual and divine life. He always wished, so far as I could observe, to have these topics treated in a rational as well as spiritual manner, with solidity and order of thought, with perspicuity and weight of expression, well knowing that religion is a most reasonable service--that G.o.d has not chosen idiots or lunatics as the instruments, or nonsense as the means of building up his church--and that though the charge of enthusiasm is often fixed on Christianity and its ministers in a wild, undeserved, and, indeed, on the whole, enthusiastical manner, by some of the loudest or most solemn pretenders to reason, yet there is really such a thing as enthusiasm, against which it becomes the true friends of revelation to be diligently on their guard, lest Christianity, instead of being exalted, should be greatly corrupted and debased, and all manner of absurdity, both in doctrine and practice, introduced by methods which, like persecution, throw truth and falsehood on a level, and render the grossest errors at once more plausible and more incurable. He had too much candour and equity to fix general charges of this nature; but he was really (and I think not vainly,) apprehensive that the emissaries and agents of the most corrupt church that ever dishonoured the Christian name, (by which, it will easily be understood, I mean that of Rome,) might very possibly insinuate themselves into societies to which they could not otherwise have access, and make their advantage of that total resignation of the understanding, and contempt of reason and learning, which nothing but ignorance, delirium, or knavery can dictate, to lead men blindfolded whither it pleased, till it set them down at the foot of an altar where transubstantiation itself was consecrated.

I know not where I can more properly introduce another part of the colonel's character, which, obvious as it was, I have not yet touched upon; I mean his tenderness to those who were under any spiritual distress, wherein he was indeed an example to ministers in a duty more peculiarly theirs. I have seen many amiable instances of this myself, and I have been informed of many others. One of these happened about the time of that awakening in the western parts of Scotland, which I touched upon above, when the Rev. Mr. M'Laurin, of Glasgow, found occasion to witness to the great propriety, judgment, and felicity of manner, with which he addressed spiritual consolation to an afflicted soul who applied to the professor at a time when he had not an opportunity immediately to give audience to the case. Indeed so long ago as the year 1726, I find him writing in this regard to a friend in a strain of tenderness which might well have become the most affectionate and experienced pastor. He there congratulates him on some religious enjoyments, lately received, (in part, it seems, by his means) when, among others, he has this modest expression: "If I have been made any way the means of doing you good, give the whole glory to G.o.d; for he has been willing to show that the power was entirely of himself, since he has been pleased to make use of so very weak an instrument." In the same letter he admonishes his friend that he should not be too much surprised, if after having been (as he expressed it) upon the mount, he should be brought into this valley again, reminding him that "we live by faith, and not by sensible a.s.surance," and representing that there are some such full communications from G.o.d as seem almost to swallow up the actings of faith, from whence they take their rise: "Whereas, when a Christian who walks in darkness, and sees no light, will yet hang, as it were, on the report of an absent Jesus, and" (as one expresses it in allusion to the story of Jacob and Joseph) "can put himself as on the chariot of the promises, to be borne on to Him whom he sees not; there may be sublimer and more acceptable actings of a pure and strong faith than in moments which afford the soul a much more rapturous delight." This is the substance of what he says in this excellent letter. Some of the phrases made use of might not perhaps be intelligible to several of my readers, for which reason I do not exactly transcribe them all; but this is plainly and fully his meaning, and most of the words are his own. The sentiment is surly very just and important; and happy would it be for many excellent persons, who, through wrong notions of the nature of faith, (which was never more misrepresented than now among some,) are perplexing themselves with the most groundless doubts and scruples, if it were more generally understood, admitted, and considered.

CHAPTER XIV.

APPREHENSIONS OF DEATH.

An endeared friend, who was most intimately conversant with the colonel during the last two years of his life, has favoured me with an account of some little circ.u.mstances relating to him, which I esteem as precious fragments, by which the consistent tenor of his character may be further ill.u.s.trated. I shall therefore insert them here, without being very solicitous as to the order in which they are introduced.

He perceived himself evidently in a very declining state from his first arrival in Britain, and seemed to entertain a fixed apprehension that he should continue but a little while longer in life. "He expected death,"

says my good correspondent, "and was delighted with the prospect," which did not grow less amiable by the nearer approach. The word of G.o.d, with which he had as intimate an acquaintance as most men I ever knew, and on which (especially on the New Testament) I have heard him make many very judicious and accurate remarks, was still his daily study; and it furnished him with matter of frequent conversation, much to the edification and comfort of those that were about him. It was recollected that, among other pa.s.sages, he had lately spoken of the following as having made a deep impression on his mind: "My soul, wait thou only upon G.o.d." He would repeat it again and again, _only, only, only_! So plainly did he see, and so deeply did he feel, the vanity of creature confidence and expectations. With the strongest attestation would he often mention those words in Isaiah, as verified by long experience: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." And with peculiar satisfaction would he utter those heroic words in Habakkuk, which he found armour of proof against every fear and every contingency: "Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meal; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the G.o.d of my salvation." The 145th Psalm was also spoken of by him with great delight, and Dr. Watts's version of it, as well as several others of that excellent person's poetical compositions. My friend who transmits to me this account, adds the following words, which I desire to insert with the deepest sentiments of unfeigned humility and self-abas.e.m.e.nt before G.o.d, as most unworthy the honour of contributing in the least degree to the joys and graces of one so much my superior in every part of the Christian character. "As the joy with which good men see the happy fruits of their labours, makes a part of the present reward of the servants of G.o.d and the friends of Jesus, it must not be omitted, even in a letter to you, that your spiritual hymns were among his most delightful and soul-improving repasts; particularly those on beholding transgressors with grief, and Christ's Message." What is added concerning my book of the Rise and Progress of Religion, and the terms in which he expressed his esteem of it, I cannot suffer to pa.s.s my pen; only I desire most sincerely to bless G.o.d, that, especially by the last chapters of that treatise, I had an opportunity, at so great a distance, of exhibiting some offices of Christian friendship to this excellent person in the closing scenes of life, which it would have been my greatest joy to have performed in person, had Providence permitted me then to have been near him.

The former of these hymns, which my correspondent mentions as having been so agreeable to Colonel Gardiner, I have given the reader already. The latter, which is called Christ's Message, took its rise from Luke iv. 18, 19, and is as follows:

Hark! the glad sound! the Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long; Let every heart prepare a throne, And every voice a song.