The thoroughness of her own "private religious duties" is shown by the fact that in the year 1700 she made a resolution to spend one hour morning and evening in private devotion. This practice she kept up through life as far as circumstances would admit.



II.

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES.

Soon we find Susanna Wesley studying the works of Jeremy Taylor, of the early Puritan Divines, and the immortal Bunyan, till at length her vigour of intellect and enterprise in reading led her into danger. By reading Arian and Socinian authors of the period, her faith was shaken. This, however, was not to be for long, and the manner of her recall was marked by interesting circumstances.

It is at this juncture that Samuel Wesley, her future husband, first appears in the story as the friend of her soul. This young student, seven years her senior, had himself made "proof" of Socinianism. In the course of some literary work, he had been specially well paid for the translation of Socinian writings from the Latin; but his strong mind revolted from their principles, the task was resigned, and his faith became more firmly rooted in Christ as the eternal Son of God. In this frame of mind Mr. Wesley met Susanna Annesley, and by God's help, succeeded in accomplishing her complete extrication from the meshes of doctrinal error and distress.

It can be gathered from her writings, about this time, that the salutary change proceeded not out of complaisance to the lover, but by reception of a fulness of light from heaven. Clearness, zeal, and love mark her Meditations and Disquisitions on the Holy Trinity; the Godhead and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Personality and Work of the Holy Spirit.

Another epoch in the girlhood of this remarkable young lady was the engagement, somewhat previously, of her mind in the controversy between the Church and Nonconformity. Here she had ample opportunity of being well-informed, for her father's house was the resort of many able men on both sides of the question. The result was that, with all due respect toward her beloved parent, she, renounced his ecclesiastical views and attached herself to the Established Church. "I was educated among the Dissenters," she writes, "and because there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the main of the controversy between them and the Established Church as far as it had come to my knowledge." Clearly, Susanna Wesley is not to be considered as having merely accepted the ecclesiastical situation, turning "Churchwoman" by marriage.



III.

MARRIAGE.

Dr. Annesley's daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, and from all accounts it would seem that the subject of this narrative shared this "dower." She was of average stature and slight frame.

"Some time, late in 1689 or early in 1690," Susanna Annesley was married to Samuel Wesley. Mr. Wesley was at that time a curate at a salary of L30 a year, and with his newly-wedded wife, took lodgings in London till the autumn of 1690, when he received the living of South Ormsby, in Lincolnshire, through the presentation of the Marquis of Normanby.

While exercising, in his pastoral duties, a diligence and faithfulness such as to put him for the most part above censure, the young husband toiled hard in literary work for the support of his household, and by various publications of a theological character in verse and prose—at one time a metrical Life of Christ, at another a treatise on The Hebrew Points, and chiefly by articles in Dunton's Athenian Oracle—he earned the means of keeping his family at least above distress.

About the close of 1696 Samuel Wesley was presented to the parish of Epworth—a place destined to be irrevocably associated with his name. This promotion is said to have been awarded him by special desire of the Queen, to whom he had dedicated his Metrical and Illustrated Life of Christ.



IV.

EPWORTH.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, with their family of four children—one son and three daughters, the youngest of these being an infant in arms—duly took possession of their new sphere. The promotion proved to be a hard parish and a humble abode. The landowners were comparatively poor, and of small culture in mind or morals. The people were proportionately subject to hardships in their mode of life, and were rude and even "savage" in character, as events were soon to prove.

There were seven rooms in the straw-roofed parsonage requiring new furniture, which had to be procured with borrowed money—a beginning of things that formed a grievous burden for many a day. The trade of the place consisted chiefly in the dressing of flax, which was extensively grown in the fields of the river-island of Axholme, in-which the village of Epworth stood, with its population of two thousand. The parsonage shared in this trade; but misfortunes soon came thickly.

A fire broke out (not the one that has become so celebrated) in 1702, and destroyed a third part of the house. Mrs. Wesley and the children were in the study when the alarm was raised, and "the mother, taking two of them in her arms, rushed through the smoke and flame;" another was with difficulty saved, and happily none were lost. A year later the rector's whole crop of flax was consumed.

The famous fire took place in 1709. According to Mrs. Wesley's account—"When we opened the street door, the strong north-east wind drove the flames in with such violence that none could stand against them. But some of our children got out through the windows, the rest through a little door into the garden. I was not in a condition to climb up to the windows, neither could I get to the garden door. I endeavoured three times to force my passage through the street door, but was as often driven back by the fury of the flames. In this distress I besought our blessed Saviour for help, and then waded through the fire, as I was, which did me no further harm than a little scorching my hands and my face." The sequel is of undying interest to the Church and the world. One sweet child, six years of age, had been left sleeping upstairs: the father made frantic attempts to reach him by the burning staircase, but in vain, and finally fell on his knees in the passage, solemnly committing the child's soul to God.

The boy, awaking after some bewilderment with the glare that looked to him as daylight, climbed upon a chest at the window, and was seen. Men, rightly guided, did not lose the last chance by waiting for a ladder, but, mounting one upon the other's shoulders, some two or three in this way saved the child, who became the famous John Wesley.

When John had been saved, the father turned to the men who had saved the boy, with the words: "Come, neighbours, let us kneel down; let us give thanks to God; He has given me all my eight children. Let the house go; I am rich enough."

This terrible occurrence was attended by consequences which made the noble Christian mother anxious for her children, in another way. Being now dispersed among various households of the village for sleeping accommodation, the little ones were, for a time, in danger of those evil communications that corrupt good manners. From this the kindness of the few who sheltered them could scarcely defend them, for the malice of the many was great against their parish minister. The grounds of ill-will and persecution were political rather than personal. It is strongly suspected that these fires were, in every instance, the deed of incendiaries. The rector's cattle had been mutilated. The children had curses flung at them in the street, and on occasion of Mr. Wesley's absence at Lincoln to record his vote, many cowardly devices were resorted to by way of alarming the family at all hours of the night. One new-born child had been, owing to Mrs. Wesley's exhaustion and danger, committed to the care of a nurse. This poor woman, losing sleep by the cruel noises purposely raised outside, at last, far in the night, fell into a heavy slumber and "overlaid the child." Cold and dead, they brought it to the poor mother.

It was political spite, also, that was at the bottom of the conduct of a creditor, who caused the rector to be arrested for debt, at the church door, after a baptismal service, and hurried off to Lincoln Castle, "leaving his lambs among so many wolves." In prison Mr. Wesley engaged in an earnest work of evangelising his "brother jail-birds," as he called them; his conduct at this period more than realising the world-renowned picture which Goldsmith has drawn of his incarcerated Vicar of Wakefield. Susanna Wesley now strove to support herself and her children by means of the diary, but, fearing lest her husband should be pining in want, she sent to him her wedding-ring, beseeching him by this to get a little money for his comfort. He returned it with words of tender gratitude, saying that "God would soon provide." Indeed, being by this time regarded as a martyr to his political principles, he was approached by some brethren of the clergy seeking to deliver him, and an arrangement was made, after three months, by which he was liberated.



V.

THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME.

It would appear that, ultimately, the family of Susanna Wesley was almost as numerous as that of her father had been. A singular want of accuracy characterises all the records, but it is safe to say that her children were some eighteen or nineteen in number. Death came often during those years of persecution. John Wesley speaks of the serenity with which his mother "worked among her thirteen children;" but ten was the number of those who were spared to enjoy the blessing of that enlightened, affectionate, and admirable training on her part, which has been so fully recorded, and of which the fruits were witnessed especially in the eminence of her sons Charles and John. She paid the utmost attention to physical training. Punctuality in the hours of sleep was carefully carried out from infancy through the years that followed. The rules regarding food were all admirable, and the younger children were early promoted to a place at the parents' own table. Mrs. Wesley has committed all these matters to writing, and her own words are valuable for their wisdom. "In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees as they are able to bear it. But the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better." "Then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity."

Again she writes: "Cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying," and accordingly, to save her own from temptation, the rule was—"whoever was charged with a fault of which they were guilty, if they would ingenuously confess it and promise to amend should not be beaten." The most careful discrimination was made between inadvertent and deliberate falsehood.

"If they amended, they were never upbraided afterward." Kindly commendation was regularly awarded to obedience evidently done at a sacrifice. "When the thing crossed the child's own inclinations, and when any of them performed an act of obedience, or did any thing with an intention to please, though the performance was not well, yet the obedience and intention were kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future."

Recreation was liberally allowed, and outdoor physical amusements encouraged. "High glee and frolic," so notably appearing in the narrative that, in after days, some writers thought to turn this matter against John Wesley, remarking that he had himself been indulged by his mother at home in amusements which he was now prohibiting to the students under him at college. He made the difference of age and the demands of duty his defence, rather than any difference of principle.

Here, surely, the motherly instinct of this remarkable woman may be of use to-day, in clearing the line of duty in the question of amusements.

"Your arguments against horse-races do certainly conclude against masquerades, balls, plays, operas, and all such light and vain diversions. I will not say it is impossible for a person to have any sense of religion who frequents these; but I never, throughout the course of my long life, knew as much as one serious Christian that did; nor can I see how a lover of God can have any relish for them."

"Take this rule—whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things—in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind—that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

She fixed the age of five for the teaching to a child the letters of the alphabet; and tells us that in all cases except two, the first day saw the conquest of the alphabet. The birthday festivities over, next morning the child went to the schoolroom of the house, where no one must come into the room from "nine till twelve or from two till five," while the teacher devoted herself entirely to that one pupil. Another feature of the method was the abolition of the study of syllables, and the immediate and usually successful advance into words and sentences, such as the opening verses of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"It is almost incredible," said Mrs. Wesley, "what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year." To this period belongs the well-known incident—when one day Mr. Wesley said to his wife while engaged in repeating a lesson to a dull child, "I wonder at your patience: you have told that child twenty times that same thing," and the mother replied—"Had I satisfied myself by mentioning the matter only nineteen times, I should have lost all my labour; you see, it was the twentieth time that crowned the whole."



VI.

THE CHURCH IN THE HOME.

The children at Epworth were well grounded in the observance of Divine worship. We may look in vain in the records of many families for anything so deep and so beautiful as that one thing which is told of them—that before they could kneel or speak the little ones were taught to ask a blessing on their food by appropriate, signs. Repeating, as soon as they were able to articulate, the Lord's Prayer morning and evening, they were encouraged to add sentences of prayers of their own conceiving, petitions for their parents, and requests for things of their own earnest desire. From this period, in each case, the parental eye was already carefully looking forward, to the time when the mind should begin to think for itself; and to help them in this important matter, Mrs. Wesley, remembering her own mental struggles, prepared for her children a book of Divinity, written for their special edification.

In due time, as the children grew a little older, days of the week were allotted to each of them, for special opportunity of conversation with their mother, as distinct from being catechised by her. This was for the purpose of dealing with "doubts and difficulties." Of the well-recorded list of days and names the "Thursday with Jacky," and "Saturday with Charles," will mostly arrest the reader now. These days came to be fondly treasured in the memory of all the children.

Twenty years after John Wesley had left home, it is touching to hear him say—-"In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who knows but in this too—a complete renunciation of the world—you may be successful?" "If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not it would be as useful now for correcting my heart, as it was then for forming my judgment."

Yet one more feature of Mrs. Wesley's plan of education was that of the children's appointed conversations with one another, the eldest with the youngest, the second eldest with the next in age, and so on. To this good purpose was devoted the better space available in the rooms of the "New Rectory," built after the fire.



VII.

STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY.

All this work of education, intellectual and spiritual, was conducted under severe pressure of poverty. When Mr. Wesley received the living of Epworth, it cost him fifty pounds to have the great seal affixed to his title, and to remove his family to the place. This unfortunately was but a specimen of the hard conditions under which he held his cure.

Lord Oxford wrote to the celebrated Dean Swift, soliciting his name as a subscriber to Mr. Wesley's book on Job—"The person concerned is a worthy, honest man; and by this work of his, he is in hopes to get free of a load of debt which has hung upon him some years. This debt is not owing to any folly or extravagance of his, but to the calamity of his house having been twice burnt, which he was obliged to rebuild. This is in short the case of an honest, poor, worthy clergyman, and I hope you will take him under your protection."

A wealthy brother of Mr. Wesley professed himself quite "scandalised" at the constant struggles of the family, and did a little for the wiping away of the reproach, but no more. "Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you ever really wanted bread?" said the good Archbishop Sharp one day, by way of preface to a very generous donation on the spot. "My Lord," was the reply, "I will freely own to your grace that, strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay for it after as has often made it very unpleasant to me. And I think to have bread on such terms is the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all."

"All this, thank God," said Mr. Wesley, "does not in the least sink my wife's spirits. She bears it with a courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her."

Mrs. Wesley's meditations on the matter carry with them an unchanging serenity of mind. "That man whose heart is penetrated with Divine love, and enjoys the manifestations of God's blissful presence, is happy, let his outward condition be what it will. This world, this present state of things, is but for a time. What is now future will be present, as what is already past once was. And then, as Pascal observes, a little earth thrown on our cold head will for ever determine our hopes and condition. Nor will it signify much who personated the prince or the beggar, since, with respect to the exterior, all must stand on the same level after death."

In a very dark hour she writes: "But even in this low ebb of fortune I am not without some kind interval...I adore and praise the unsearchable wisdom and boundless goodness of Almighty God for this dispensation of His providence towards me. For I clearly discern there is more of mercy in this disappointment of my hopes than there would have been in permitting me to enjoy all that I desired, because it hath given me a sight and sense of some sins which I had not before. I would not have imagined I was in the least inclined to idolatry, and covetousness, and want of practical subjection to the will of God.... Again, the furnace of affliction which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us, but only to purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode among those blessed ones that passed through the same trials before us into the celestial paradise.... How shall we then adore and praise what we cannot here apprehend aright! How will love and joy work in the soul! But I cannot express it; I cannot conceive it."



VIII.

A NEW DEPARTURE.

Where the great religious movement of the last century in England is to be traced to any human influence, the mother of John and Charles Wesley must have a large share of the sacred honour. This will be found to fall to her by right, not only on account of that profound religious education she imparted to her children, but also by reason of the peculiar direction which she gave it. Even in respect of their first institution of assemblies for the preaching of the Gospel outside the walls of churches or any stated places of worship, Susanna Wesley may be discovered to have led the way.

In the year 1711, during one of the protracted sojournings of Mr. Wesley in London attending Convocation, and also doing business with his publishers, his place at the parish church was supplied by a curate whose ministrations were not particularly efficient, although, as may be judged from things already told, the people of Epworth were not likely to be very exacting.

However, a notable reaction of feeling in favour of their minister had set in since the days of the fire, and the parishioners were, many of them, quietly attentive to Divine ordinances. Mrs. Wesley, without any pronounced hostility on her part toward the curate, felt a deep echo of the popular complaint in her own soul. Divine service at church had been cut down to one diet in the morning, and hence, to save her children and servants from temptation of mere idleness, the gifted mother felt herself called to set up a kind of service at the parsonage. Of this step she duly apprised her husband, saying: "I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my care as a talent committed to me, under a trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth; and if I am unfaithful to Him or to you in neglecting to improve those talents, how shall I answer unto Him when He shall command me to render an account of my stewardship?"

As yet, all she had done was reading to, and instructing her own family. But the news of this spread in Epworth, and a hunger for the Word arose. The parents, brothers, and sisters of the servants dropped in till the audience was about thirty or forty. The services consisted of praise, prayer, and reading of a short sermon. At this time Mrs. Wesley's mind was greatly stimulated by the accounts she had been perusing of the devoted labours of two Danish missionaries in India. She felt impelled "to do somewhat" for Christ.

Conversation with the neighbours who had come to the parsonage-meetings shaped itself into meetings of inquirers. She now fell back upon the library, in quest of "more awakening sermons," which were found among her husband's stock of Puritan authors.

The attendance at the services now increased so as completely to fill the rooms. At length some three or four persons, headed by the curate, wrote to the rector in London concerning the doings of his wife and the danger of a "conventicle." Mr. Wesley was sufficiently interested and apprehensive to write to her and ask what had been done, and whether it did not look "particular." To this his wife, rather glad to be challenged, lost no time in replying; and her written explanation to the head of the house and parish has resulted in our possessing an ample account of the movement. "As to its looking particular," she said, "I grant it does, and so does almost everything that is serious, or that may any way advance the glory of God or the salvation of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit or in the way of common conversation." After giving various reasons for her action, she proceeds: "Now, I beseech you, weigh all these things in an impartial balance.... If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for the neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ."



No wonder that all opposition on the part of the rector from this moment disappeared, and on returning to his charge he found many signs of a happy change, and that all things were as if freshened under the dew of the blessing of God.



IX.

RELATION TO HER SONS.

Susanna Wesley was the life-long counsellor of her children.

Amid those interesting conversations which were held with each member of the family on appointed days and hours, and which are frequently noted in Mrs. Wesley's private meditations, we are arrested by the heading of one of them—"Son John"—and we learn that he became a communicant at the Lord's table at eight years of age, this important step being taken by reason of his great seriousness and of the signs of grace that were seen in him.

His mother gives us another striking glimpse of him, in April 1712, when the scourge of small-pox attacked five of the children—"Jack bore his disease bravely like a man, and indeed a Christian without any complaint."

On recovering he was, through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, to whom his father was known, sent to Charterhouse School; but at this period there is little or nothing recorded of correspondence with his mother. It is tolerably clear that the reason of this was that the boy was studious to a degree, and needed his father's injunction to see to it that he took regular exercise in the garden. The letters of Mrs. Wesley to her sons are best represented by those addressed to Samuel, now twenty years of age. After having distinguished himself at Westminster School, and won the special regard and friendship of those two eminent men, Bishops Sprat and Atterbury, Samuel repaired to Oxford. Following the fashion of the time, the youth had hitherto addressed his mother as "Dear Madam." His mother disliked the phrase, but had waited till the change should be made spontaneously to "Dear Mother," which instantly evoked the response, "Dear Sammy,—-I am much better pleased with the beginning of your letter than with that you used to send me, for I do not love distance or ceremony; there is more of love and tenderness in the name of mother than in all the complimentary titles in the world... You complain that you are unstable and inconstant in the ways of virtue. Alas! what Christian is not so too? I am sure that I, above all others, am most unfit to advise in such a case: yet since I love you as my own soul, I will endeavour to do as well as I can."

Admirable advice is then given as to choice of company, with strictness yet with charity, for "we must take the world as we find it;" and the wholesome caution to beware "lest the comparing yourself with others may be an occasion of your falling into too much vanity," and "rather entertain such thoughts as these, 'Though I know my own birth and advantages, yet how little do I know of the circumstances of others!' 'Were they so solemnly devoted to God at their birth as I was?' You have had the example of a father who served God from his youth; and though I cannot commend my own to you, for it is too bad to be imitated, yet surely my earnest prayers for many years and some little good advice have not been wanting.... If still upon comparison you seem better than others are, then ask yourself who it is that makes you differ: and let God have all the praise.... I am straitened for paper and time, therefore must conclude. God Almighty bless you and preserve you from all evil. Adieu.

"SUSANNA WESLEY."

It is a striking fact that Mrs. Wesley's letters to her son John are for the most part concerning his secular affairs; the inference is not remote that, as regards his spiritual welfare, John Wesley appeared to his mother at all times to be in a satisfactory condition. At one time he presses her for an opinion on Thomas a Kempis, and receives an elaborate answer, at once philosophical and theological, in the course of which the remark is made—"I take a Kempis to have been an honest weak man, with more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many plain and direct texts of Scripture. 'Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a good man; nor do I understand how any man can thank God for present misery, yet do I know very well what it is to rejoice in the midst of deep afflictions. Not in the affliction itself, for then it would cease to be one; but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a God who has promised that all things shall work together for good, for the spiritual and eternal good, of those that love Him." Evidently it is from an unshaken soul the concluding words of the letter proceed—"Your brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and Charles. God be merciful to us all!"

Much earnest and deeply discriminative advice is given to John on occasion of his entering the holy ministry. The letter then written to him abounds with traces of the fact that he had been in the habit of confiding much of his mind to his mother through those years. In 1727 she writes to him a profound and beautiful epistle, in terms which indicate that he had made her his confidante at the time, in his love for a young lady whom he had lately met in Worcestershire.

"What then is love? Oh, how shall we describe its strange, mysterious essence? It is—I do not know what! A powerful something; source of our joy and grief, felt and experienced by every one, and yet unknown to all! Nor shall we ever comprehend what it is till we are united to our first principle, and there read its wondrous nature in the clear mirror of uncreated love:"

Another letter belonging to the same year is solemnly prospective the topic being evidently the "cares of the world."

"'Believe me, youth (for I am read in cares, And bend beneath the weight of more than fifty years).'

"Believe me, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend either our lives or our fortunes. Ah! my dear son, did you with me stand on the verge of life, and saw before your eyes a vast expanse, an unlimited duration of being, which you might shortly enter upon, you can't conceive how all the inadvertencies, mistakes, and sins of youth would rise to your view; and how different the, sentiments of sensitive pleasures, the desire of sexes and pernicious friendships of the world would be then from what they are now while health is entire and seems to promise many years of life."



X

WIDOWHOOD.

The Rector of Epworth had been slowly mastering his difficulties with the world. The circumstances of the family seem to have taken a favourable turn from the year 1724, when the small living of Wroote, four miles distant, and valued at L50 a year, was added to that of Epworth. The family removed to Wroote, and many of Mrs. Wesley's most interesting letters are dated from the parsonage there. Her husband continued to toil for some years at what he meant to be his great work—his commentary on the Book of Job—but the outer man was visibly perishing. His now palsied hand required the services of an amanuensis. "My eyes and my heart," he said, "are now almost all I have left; and bless God for them!" He died on the 25th of April, 1735, in the 72nd year of his age.

His death was marked by many utterances of faith and of joy in God, and by his memorable saying to his sons—"Be steady! The Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom. You shall see it, though I shall not."

It was Samuel who was now for the most part charged with the support of his mother; but in this duty there was a generous rivalry among-her children. The name of John appears in discharge of the last of his father's liabilities that had been cruelly pressed upon the very day of the funeral; and Charles writes to Samuel—"My mother desires you will remember that she is a clergyman's widow. Let the Society give her what they please, she must be still, in some degree, burdensome to you. How do I envy you that glorious burden, and wish I could share it with you:"

Mrs. Wesley having now left the "old place," settled for a little in the neighbouring town of Gainsborough, and afterwards resided with Samuel at Tiverton from September, 1736, till July, 1737.

Her sons John and Charles had now set out upon their well-known Gospel enterprise to the State of Georgia in America. Their mother signalised the hour by a letter full of solemn and ennobling thought, in which she allows herself but slightly to touch upon the fact of separation, and gives her own personal version of the apostle's "strait betwixt two"—"One thing often troubles me: that notwithstanding I know that while we are present with the body we are absent from the Lord; notwithstanding I have no taste, no relish left for anything the world calls pleasure, yet I do not long to go home, as in reason I ought to do. This often shocks me. Pray for me that God would make me better, and take me at the best."

The Georgian mission of her sons having ended, to her joy, in their return home, a great work immediately opened for them in England. It now became apparent, in their consultations with their mother, that the views of Divine truth and even of the mode of propagating the Gospel, which were taking possession of their minds, had to her been long and deeply familiar as the desire of her heart. Her testimony was all the more valuable that it was given with much caution.

Samuel wrote to her complaining of the new ideas of his brothers John and Charles, and appealing confidently to her verdict in the matter. He found that she mainly coincided with the returned missionaries in those convictions regarding the Gospel doctrines of faith and instantaneous conversion that were so soon to move the world.

At the same time she shared his apprehensions regarding certain things in the work that bore an aspect of extravagance. "I should think that the reviving these pretentious to dreams, visions, etc., is not only vain and frivolous as to the matter of them, but also of dangerous consequence to the weaker sort of Christians. As far as I can see, they plead that these visions, etc., are given to assure some particular persons of their adoption and salvation. But this end is abundantly provided for in the Holy Scripture's, wherein all may find the rules by which we must live here and be judged hereafter. And if, upon a serious review of our state, we find that in the tenour of our lives we have or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform the conditions of the Gospel covenant required on our parts, then we may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good foundation of a strong, reasonable, and lively hope of God's mercy through Christ."

To the communications of John and Charles regarding the fresh baptism of the Spirit that had come upon them, she wrote expressing her thankfulness for the glad tidings, only remarking to Charles that she thought he had surely fallen into an "odd way of thinking," in stating that till within a few months he had no spiritual life nor any justifying faith. "Blessed be God, who showed you the necessity you were in of a Saviour to deliver you from the power of sin and Satan, for Christ will be no Saviour but to such as see their need of one. Blessed be His holy name, that thou hast found Him a Saviour to thee, my son! Oh, let us love Him much, for we have much forgiven."



XI.

THE FOUNDRY AT MOORFIELDS.

Susanna Wesley came to London in April, 1739, to spend the rest of her days in a place that had been well prepared for her. John had found a centre at Moorfields for his work in the metropolis. Out of a disused Government foundry had been constructed a chapel, a house for the lay-preachers, and apartments for himself, where he wished to have his mother come and live with him. The new home, though but scantily furnished, proved to her a little paradise in the communion she now enjoyed with her son, in the easy access of all her children to her, and in the pleasure of seeing the great work and increase of the Gospel. Here also she received in her own soul a wonderful increase of blessing—so much surpassing all her experience hitherto as to cause her to make the reflection that "she had scarce heard, till then, such a thing mentioned as the having God's Spirit bear witness with our spirit." "But two or three weeks ago, while my son Hall was pronouncing these words in delivering the cup to me, 'The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee,' the words struck through my heart, and I knew God for Christ's sake had forgiven me all my sins."

It caused her no apparent pain a little after to receive a letter from her son Samuel, saying: "It was with exceeding concern and grief I heard you had countenanced a spreading delusion, so far as to be one of Jack's congregation. Is it not enough that I am bereft of both my brothers, but must my mother follow too? I earnestly beseech the Almighty to preserve you from joining a schism at the close of your life, as you were unfortunately engaged in one at the beginning of it. It will cost you many a protest, should you retain your integrity, as I hope to God you will." The new joy of his mother evidently so abounded in charity as to drown all bitterness and take away all fear of any real separation between them.

Samuel died in the autumn of the same year, during an illness of his mother, and John Wesley left the house that day rather than break the sad news to her, and one of his sisters was commissioned to do it with all gentleness. We find nothing but sweetness and hope in the letter which Susanna Wesley was enabled to write to her son Charles:—"Your brother was exceedingly dear to me in this life, and perhaps I have erred in loving him too well. I once thought it impossible to bear his loss, but none know what they can bear till they are tried. I rejoice in having a comfortable hope of my dear son's salvation. He is now at rest, and would not return to earth to gain the world. He hath reached the haven before me, but I shall soon follow him. He must not return to me, but I shall go to him, never to part more."

Many Christian friends continued to visit her at Moorfields; her conversation was prized by all, and her presence on the scene and at the centre of evangelism was a power for good. In true consistency with the memorable season at Epworth, and her own institution of the Church in the Home, Mrs. Wesley was privileged to give her testimony in favour of lay-preaching. To John Wesley the field was now indeed "the world," and his labours were multiplying past his strength. While he went from place to place, Mr. Thomas Maxfield, "a young man of good sense and piety," took charge of the work at Moorfields. His appointed duty extended to "the reading and explaining of the Scriptures to bands and classes;" but Maxfield soon went the length of public preaching, which he did with much ability and unction. John Wesley lost no time in coming home to check this "irregular proceeding." But his mother urged:—"John, you know what my sentiments have been. You cannot suspect me of readily favouring anything of this kind. But take care what you do with respect to this young man, for he is as surely called to preach as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself." This was done; and John Wesley said, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good. What am I that I should withstand God?"

Thus fitly, as became her already historic part in it, Susanna Wesley may he said to have launched the important institution of lay-preaching in the Church that bears her name.



XII.

LAST DAYS AND DEATH.

The life at Moorfields, which had been, to this venerable mother in Israel, of the character of a peaceful haven after a rough voyage, was now drawing rapidly to a close. Her bodily illnesses much resembled those of her husband's later years, and were, no doubt, to be in some measure attributed to the penury and hardship she had shared with him so long.

But we do not hear so much about her maladies us of the many signs of triumph over them, till by the month of July, 1742, the vital power is ebbing low, and her daughters gather round her. The sons were out in the field. Charles had bent over her with filial attentions, till, concluding in his own mind that her strength would hold out for a few days, he departed to his work, hoping soon to return.

John Wesley was at Bristol on Sunday evening the 18th of July, and had just ended preaching to a large congregation, when the message came that his mother was apparently near death.

He rode off immediately for London, which he reached on the 20th, and, as he says in his Journal, "I found my mother on the borders of eternity; but she has no doubt or fear, nor any desire but, as soon as God should call her, to depart and be with Christ." She enjoyed a quiet sleep on the evening of the 22nd, and awoke in the morning in a joyful frame of mind. Her children heard her say, "My dear Saviour, art Thou come to help me in my extremity at last?"

Utterances of praise at intervals filled the hours that remained, At four o'clock in the afternoon her son had left her for a little, that he might snatch some hasty refreshment in the adjoining room, when he was called back again to offer the commendatory prayer. "She opened her eyes wide and fixed them upward for a moment. Then the lids dropped, and the soul was set at liberty, without one struggle or groan or sigh, on the 23rd of July, 1742, aged seventy-three. We stood round the bed and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech, 'Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.'"

There was a vast crowd at the funeral, at Bunhill Fields, on the 1st of August. John Wesley's voice faltered as he pronounced the words, "The soul of our dear mother here departed"—and the grief of the multitude broke out afresh. A hymn was sung, and he then stood forth and preached one of the most moving sermons that ever came from his lips, turning not upon the pathos of the funeral, but upon the Bible picture of the last judgment. Of the occasion he himself has said—"It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw or expect to see, on this side eternity." The stone at the head of her grave was inscribed with her name, and with verses from the pen of her son Charles:—

HERE LIES THE BODY OF MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY, YOUNGEST AND LAST SURVIVING DAUGHTER OF DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY.

In sure and stedfast hope to rise, And claim her mansion in the skies, A Christian hero her flesh laid down, The cross exchanging for a crown;

True daughter of affection she, Inured to pain and misery; Mourned a long night of grief and fears— A legal night of seventy years.

The Father then revealed His Son; Him in the broken bread made known She knew, and felt her sins forgiven, And found the earnest of her heaven.

Meet for the fellowship above, She heard the call, "Arise, My love!" "I come," her dying looks replied, And lamb-like, as her Lord, she died.



XIII.

CONCLUSION.

The title "Founder of Methodism," humanly speaking, must be shared between mother and son. To many minds this will seem to have been a question settled by the action of Mrs. Wesley at Epworth.

But her part in the matter shows a deepening beauty from the first in fulfilment of the words of her Journal concerning John, with special reference to his remarkable rescue from the fire, "I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided for."

When, at college, he and his brother, with their young companions, owing to their living by rule, first won the name of "Methodists," amid sneers and persecutions, his mother cheered him on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"—and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, at Aldersgate Street, 24th May, 1738, so memorable in the spiritual history of Methodism, when John Wesley stood up in his newly-found fulness of the assurance of grace, and encountered much sharp rebuke on the spot, he had been well fortified beforehand with his mother's sympathy, saying, "She was glad he had got into such a just way of thinking." She also saw eye to eye with him in his position in the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism.

The beginning of lay-preaching dates, as we have seen, from her support of Thomas Maxfield, and the leading features of the mode of preaching which John Wesley recommended to his followers may be found, long before, in his mother's counsels to himself—"to avoid nice distinctions in public assemblies"—to exalt Christ and the work of the Spirit. "Here you may give free scope to your souls," and "discourse without reserve, as His Spirit gives you utterance." Well does her son call her "in her measure and degree a preacher of righteousness."

So shines the bright light of Susanna Wesley all along the upbuilding of that great Christian society which bears the name of her sons. Her example must surely also be of special value at the present day, when, alike in the Church and in the world, the place of woman rises in importance, and the demand is for further opportunity of usefulness. For the life of this gifted and saintly woman is characterised by a modesty that is above criticism, and, at the same time, shows no lack of the greatness of power and achievement in the work of the Lord.

JAMES CUNNINGHAM, M.A.



MRS. HEMANS.

Mrs. Hemans is fully entitled to a place in the ranks of Excellent Women, not only on account of her personal character, but also on account of the work she did—a work removed from the "stunning tide," but not the less effectual.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Hemans exerted a distinct influence and made a distinct impression on the national character. She left the world unmistakably better for her having lived in it. Many do not realise what great abiding results flowed from her work. And one chief way in which she was productive of so much good to her race was this: she raised the standard of popular poetry, raised it at a time when it sadly needed raising, to a higher level and tone. "Though she wrote so much and in an age when Byron was the favourite poet of Englishmen, not a line left her pen that indicated anything but a spotless and habitually lofty mind." It was no mean achievement to establish the popularity of a poetry which was by its purity a rebuke to much that had hitherto passed current and received applause.

How well she succeeded in accomplishing the ends which, as we learn in that beautiful piece of hers, "A Poet's Dying Hymn," she had set before herself and others who gave expression to their thoughts in verse!

"And if Thy Spirit on Thy child hath shed The gift, the vision of the unsealed eye, To pierce the mist o'er life's deep meanings spread, To reach the hidden fountain-urns that lie Far in man's heart—if I have kept it free And pure, a consecration unto Thee, I bless Thee, O my God!

* * * * *

Not for the brightness of a mortal wreath, Not for a place 'midst kingly minstrels dead, But that, perchance, a faint gale of Thy breath, A still small whisper, in my song hath led One struggling spirit upwards to Thy throne, Or but one hope, one prayer—for this alone I bless Thee, O my God!"

Many a straggler in life's perplexities found sympathy and help in the sweet verses of this poetess. They felt that there was one struggling by their side, one who could rest on God's promises, and could almost insensibly "weave links for intercourse with God."



I.

EARLY DAYS.

Felicia Dorothea Browne was born in Duke Street, Liverpool, on the 25th of September, 1793. She was the second daughter and the fourth child of a family of three sons and three daughters. Her father, who was a native of Ireland, was a merchant of good position. Her mother, whose maiden name was Wagner, was the daughter of the Venetian consul in Liverpool. The original name was Veniero, but as the result of German alliances it had assumed this German form. Three members of the family had risen to the dignity of Doge. The first six years of Felicia's life were spent in Liverpool. Then commercial losses compelled her father to break up his establishment in that city and remove to Wales. The next nine years of her life were spent at Gwyrch, near Abergele, in North Wales. The house was a spacious old mansion, close to the seashore, and shut in on the land side by lofty hills. Surely a fit place for the early residence of a poetess of Nature. Besides this advantage of situation, she had the privilege of access to the treasures of a large library. The records of her early days show her to have been a child of extreme beauty, with a brilliant complexion and long, curling, golden hair. But her personal beauty was not the only thing that arrested attention. Her talents and sweetness of disposition retained the notice which her attractiveness had obtained. The old gardener used to say that "Miss Felicia could 'tice him to do whatever she pleased." And he was not the only one who fell under her gentle constraint. She was a general favourite.

This girl of many hopes had no regular education. She was never at school. Her mother's teaching and her own avidity for information were almost her only means of instruction. Mrs. Browne was a woman of high acquirements, both intellectual and moral, eminently adapted for the training of so sensitive a mind. For a time the child was taught French, English grammar, and the rudiments of Latin by a gentleman who used to regret that she was not a man, to have borne away the highest honours at college! A remarkable memory was of great benefit to her. Her sister states that she could repeat pages of poetry from her favourite authors after having read them over but once. On one occasion, to satisfy the incredulity of one of her brothers, she learned by heart the whole of Heber's poem of "Europe," containing four hundred and twenty-four lines, in an hour and twenty minutes. She repeated it without a single mistake or a moment's hesitation. Long pieces of both prose and poetry she would often recite after having twice glanced over them. This power of memory stood her in good stead in her later life, when physical weakness prevented her from writing down what she had composed. Her thoughts had to be retained in her mind, and then dictated.

When Felicia Browne was about eleven years old she spent the winter in London with her father and mother. But this visit had not the charm for her that it has for most young people. She saw nothing in the metropolis to compensate for the loss of the country. The sights and scenes of the busy throng were not so congenial as the sights and scenes of the quiet little Welsh home. "She longed to rejoin her younger brother and sister in their favourite rural haunts and amusements—the nutting wood, the beloved apple-tree, the old arbour, with its swing, the post-office tree, in whose trunk a daily interchange of letters was established, the pool where fairy-ships were launched (generally painted and decorated by herself), and, dearer still, the fresh, free ramble on the seashore, or the mountain 'expedition' to the Signal Station, or the Roman Encampment." Town parties and town conventionalities had little in them to gain favour in the eyes of this bonnie free country lass. Not that she did not sometimes derive pleasure from the sights she was taken to. Especially was she impressed by her visits to some of the great works of art. On entering a gallery of sculpture, she involuntarily exclaimed, "Oh, hush:—don't speak!"



II.

FIRST POEMS.

The first appearance in print! What an event in life is this! What a new world it seems to open out to the writer! Felicia Browne was fourteen years old when a collection of her poems was published. The earliest of these early compositions was written when she was only eight years of age.

The volume of poems appeared in 1808. Perhaps it would have been a more judicious course on the part of her friends if they had prevented them from appearing. The young girl of fourteen years was by her youth ill-fitted to face the criticisms of the literary world.

At this time there came across her path the person whose name she was afterwards to bear—Captain Hemans, of the King's Own Regiment. He was on a visit in the neighbourhood of Gwyrch, and soon became an intimate friend in the family which contained Felicia amongst its members. Before he was called upon to embark with his regiment for Spain, an impression had been created which three years' absence did not efface on either side. The friends of both parties hoped that it might be otherwise, and that nothing would come of this attachment. But their hopes were not to be realised.



III.

MARRIAGE.

In 1809 the Browne family removed to Bronwylfa, near St. Asaph. Her self-education and her literary work went on side by side.

Captain Hemans returned to Wales in 1811, and in the following year he was married to Miss Browne. His appointment as adjutant to the Northamptonshire Militia caused them to take up their residence at Daventry, a neighbourhood by its tameness strangely contrasting with her "own mountain-land." But she was not to be long away from her old home. The next year, on the reduction of the corps, a return was made to Bronwylfa. Mrs. Hemans was never again, until death parted them, to leave her mother, "by whose unwearied spirit of love and hope she was encouraged to bear on through all the obstacles which beset her path." A period of domestic privacy in association with literary occupation and study followed. Five children, all sons, were given to her. One can easily understand how many calls there were now on her, as, her marriage being not altogether a happy one, she had to arrange the education of her children. How well she trained them, not only in temporal wisdom, but in the highest of all wisdom, many evidences show. We may anticipate and insert an anecdote of one of her boys at the age of eleven. She had been reading to him Lord Byron's magnificent address to the sea:—

"Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean, roll."

He listened with breathless attention, and at the close broke out with these words—"It is very grand indeed!—but how much finer it would have been, mamma, if he had said at the close, that God had measured out all those waters with the hollow of His hand!" On another occasion she was explaining to her eight-year-old boy the meaning of the title of a story he was reading, "The Atheist." His argument was real and ready: "Not believe in a God, mamma? Who does he expect made the world and his own body?"



IV.

WORK AND FRIENDS.

The plentiful contributions from her pen were becoming increasingly popular, and it may be added increasingly useful. There is no doubt that she was a distinct moral power for good.

As almost every one thinks that he or she can compose poetry, and that better than others, it often happens that in a prize poem competition there is no lack of persons ready to enter the lists. So it was when a patriotic Scotchman offered a prize of L50 for the best poem on "The meeting of Wallace and Bruce." The number of competitors was astounding, and the mass of matter sent in overwhelming, one production being as long as "Paradise Lost." Quality prevailed over quantity, and the award was made to Mrs. Hemans. This was not the only occasion on which she was adjudged the prize in a competition. In 1821 she obtained that awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on "Dartmoor."

One of her poems, which was destined to be almost more useful than any of the others, was "The Sceptic." A reviewer's testimony to the elevating influence of the work, after complaining of the grave defect in some of the most popular writers of the day, in that "they are not sufficiently attentive to the moral dignity of the performances," concludes with this encomium on Mrs. Hemans' work:—"With the promise of talents not inferior to any, and far superior to most of them, the author before us is not only free from every stain, but breathes all moral beauty and loveliness; and it will be a memorable coincidence if the era of a woman's sway in literature shall become co-eval with the return of its moral purity and elevation." A more gratifying testimony to the worth of "The Sceptic" was given in a visit of a stranger to Mrs. Hemans. It occurred many years after "The Sceptic" was published; indeed, a very short time before her death. The visitor was told that she was unable to see him, as she was only just recovering from an illness. He entreated for a few minutes' interview with such importunity that it was granted to him. On his admission he explained with the utmost feeling that the object of his visit was to acknowledge the deepest debt of obligation; "that to her he owed, in the first instance, that faith and those hopes which were now more precious to him than life itself; for that it was by reading her poem of 'The Sceptic' he had been first awakened from the miserable delusion of infidelity and induced to 'search the Scriptures.'" This was not the only time she received a comforting assurance of this kind with regard to the poem.

The warm friendship of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Luxmoore, was a great boon to Mrs. Hemans. He was always ready with his advice and his support; and she found them of singular benefit in her comparatively lonely position. The bishop's palace was like a second home. There she and her children were always welcome. Of like value was the friendship of another who was also destined to have a place on the episcopal bench. Reginald Heber was a frequent visitor at the residence of his father-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph. He soon became deeply interested in the welfare of Mrs. Hemans. She found in him one whose counsel, especially in literary matters, was of the utmost value. His suggestions and encouragement supplied just what she wanted. Any one who reads his hints with regard to her contemplated poem "Superstition and Revelation" will know how full and painstaking was the trouble he took to assist his friend.

The design of the poem to which reference has just been made was a grand one. It is best described in her own words: "Might not a poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course, much classical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superstitions of more barbarous climes, might be introduced, to prove how little consolation they could convey in the hour of affliction, or hope in that of death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in illustration of this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for poetry of the highest class." The poem was commenced, but never completed. It was pressed out by other undertakings.



V.

THE HOME IN WALES.

Mrs. Hemans found peculiar pleasure in reading and speaking German. "I am so delighted," she wrote, "when I meet with any one who knows and loves my favourite scelenvolle (full of soul) German, that I believe I could talk of it for ever." Her sister remarks that her knowledge of the language seemed almost as if it had been born with her.

The poetess could write humorous prose as well as serious verse. Some of her letters written in 1822 give a very amusing description of the inconveniences she had to put up with whilst certain alterations were being made at Bronwylfa. She describes how at last she was driven to seek refuge in the laundry, from which classical locality, she was wont to say, it could be no wonder if sadly mangled lines were to issue. "I entreat you to pity me. I am actually in the melancholy situation of Lord Byron's 'scorpion girt by fire'—her circle narrowing as she goes—for I have been pursued by the household troops through every room successively, and begin to think of establishing my metier in the cellar; though I dare say, if I were to fix myself as comfortably in a hogshead as Diogenes himself, it would immediately be discovered that some of the hoops or staves wanted repair." "There is a war of old grates with new grates, and plaster and paint with dust and cobwebs, carrying on in this once tranquil abode, with a vigour and animosity productive of little less din than that occasioned by 'lance to lance and horse to horse.' I assure you, when I make my escape about 'fall of eve' to some of the green quiet hayfields by which we are surrounded, and look back at the house, which, from a little distance, seems almost, like Shakespeare's moonlight, to 'sleep upon the bank,' I can hardly conceive how so gentle-looking a dwelling can continue to send forth such an incessant clatter of obstreperous sound through its honeysuckle-fringed windows. It really reminds me of a pretty shrew, whose amiable smiles would hardly allow a casual observer to suspect the possibility of so fair a surface being occasionally ruffled by storms."

The lyric "The Voice of Spring" was written in 1823. It was followed by "Breathings of Spring." The season of spring had a marked influence upon her. It was, with all its joy and beauty, generally "a time of thoughtfulness rather than mirth." It has been well observed that autumn in one way is a more joyous time than spring. It reminds us that "we shall go to them," while in spring everything seems to say "they will not return to us."

"But what awakest thou in the heart, O Spring! The human heart, with all its dreams and sighs? Thou that givest back so many a buried thing, Restorer of forgotten harmonies! Fresh songs and scents break forth where'er thou art— What wakest thou in the heart?

Too much, oh, then too much! We know not well Wherefore it should be thus, yet, roused by thee, What fond, strange yearnings, from the soul's deep cell, Gush for the faces we no more may see! How are we lamented, in the wind's low tone, By voices that are gone?"

In 1825 there appeared one of her principal works—the one she considered as almost, if not altogether, the best—The Forest Sanctuary. It related to the sufferings of a Spanish Protestant in the time of Philip II., and is supposed to be narrated by the sufferer himself, who escapes with his child to a North American forest. The picture of the burial at sea was the passage of whose merits she had the highest opinion.



VI.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

Another change of home took place in 1825. The new home was not more than a quarter of a mile from the old one. Rhyllon could be seen from the windows of Bronwylfa. It was a very different house. The former is described as a tall, staring brick house, almost destitute of trees; the latter as a perfect bower of roses, peeping out like a bird's-nest from amidst the foliage in which it was embosomed. The contrast is playfully depicted in a dramatic scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon. The former, after standing for some time in silent contemplation of Rhyllon, breaks out into the following vehement strain of vituperation:—

"You ugliest of fabrics! you horrible eyesore! I wish you would vanish, or put on a vizor! In the face of the sun, without covering or rag on, You stand and outstare me, like any red dragon."

And so on through many amusing and spirited lines, showing the lighter side of the authoress's character. Her sister describes this part of her life as perhaps the happiest of all, and this was produced to a great extent by her seeing the happiness of others, especially that of her boys. She was always ready to join them in their rambles and their sports. The mornings were spent in the instruction of her children, then in answering countless letters and satisfying the demands of impatient editors. And this done, she would revel in the enjoyment of fresh air. "Soft winds and bright blue skies," she writes, "make me, or dispose me to be, a sad idler." For this reason she delighted in the rigour of winter, as being most conducive to literary productiveness.

A heavy sorrow was overshadowing this happy home. Between Mrs. Hemans and her mother there was the strongest bond of affection. In her poems there may be traced the intensity of this love. It is found in the simple lines, "On my Mother's Birthday," when the child was only eight years old, and, after incidentally appearing in many a poem, it is shown in all its intensity in the "Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother."

"Father, that in the olive shade, When the dark hour came on, Didst, with a breath of heavenly aid, Strengthen Thy Son;

Oh, by the anguish of that night, Send us down blest relief; Or to the chastened, let Thy might Hallow this grief!"

And if the flame of passionate affection shone out in the time of fear and impending sorrow, no less was it seen after the dread hour had come. What beauty there is in the lines entitled "The Charmed Picture":—

"Sweet face, that o'er my childhood shone, Whence is thy power of change, Thus ever shadowing back my own, The rapid and the strange?

Whence are they charmed—those earnest eyes? I know the mystery well! In mine own trembling bosom lies The spirit of the spell!"



This mother patiently bore sickness for eight months, and then passed away. Something of what this blow meant to the loving daughter may be gathered from her letters. But she knew where true comfort was to be found, and in alluding to the words of another setting forth the Divine consolation, she says, "This is surely the language of real consolation; how different from that which attempts to soothe us by general remarks on the common lot, the course of Nature, or even by dwelling on the release of the departed from pain and trial."

It was not surprising that her health, for a long time delicate, now showed signs of an alarming nature. She often had a complete prostration of strength, succeeded by a wonderful reaction.



VII.

REMOVAL FROM WALES.

The place of Mrs. Hemans in the literary world was established. As might be expected, friendships were formed with those who had tastes in common. Amongst the number were Miss Baillie, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Howitt, Miss Jewsbury, and Dean Milman. From her friends she sought sympathy rather than praise. Always appreciative of words of encouragement, she gave back good exchange in the artless way into which she entered into the pursuits of her correspondents.

Her health continued to give great anxiety to her friends, and matters were not improved by the unconquerable dislike of the patient to the adoption of the necessary precautions and remedies. But in the midst of all her suffering her imagination was busy. Compositions were dictated to friends who sat by her bedside. Her amanuensis record—how the little song "Where is the Sea" came to her like a strain of music whilst lying in the twilight under the infliction of a blister.

In 1828 she published the Records of Woman, the work into which she said she had put her heart and individual feelings more than in anything else she had written. One verse amongst many others indicates the pressure put upon her feeble frame by the intensity of her activity of mind.

"Yet I have known it long; Too restless and too strong Within this clay hath been the o'ermastering flame; Swift thought that came and went, Like torrents o'er me sent, Have shaken as a reed my thrilling frame."

A severe trial was at hand. The home must again be changed and the beloved Wales left. The marriage of her sister and the appointment of her brother to an official post were the immediate cause. In which direction should she turn her steps with most advantage? The choice was determined by the consideration that at Wavertree near Liverpool she had several attached friends, that there she would meet with advantages for the education of her boys and also with more literary communion for herself.

The wrench from the "land of her childhood, her home, and her dead," was a hard one. She wrote, telling her friends how she literally covered her face all the way from Bronwylfa until her boys told her they had passed the Clwyd range of hills. Then she felt that something of the bitterness was over.

"The sound of thy streams in my spirit I bear; Farewell, and a blessing be with thee, green land! On thy hearths, on thy halls, on thy pure mountain air, On the chords of the harp, and the minstrel's free hand, From the love of my soul, with my tears it is shed, As I leave thee, green land of my home and my dead."

Her love for the people of Wales was not an unreciprocated love. Many of them rushed forward to touch the posts of the gate through which the poetess had passed; and when, three years later, she paid a visit to St. Asaph, came and wept over her, and entreated her to make her home among them again.



VIII.

WAVEETEEE.

Wavertree had its advantages, but it certainly had its disadvantages too. She was brought into a scene where all her precious time might have been absorbed in the trivialities of society. She was overwhelmed with offers of service and marks of courtesy. All the gaiety of a large town was open to her. Gladly would she, as one who had made her mark, have been received on all hands. But consideration of both time and inclination demanded that her life should be spent in a more retired way. She had a great distaste to "going out." And so the frivolous soon gave her up, and went their own way. Her dress was not rigorously correct; she seemed to have motives and pursuits unlike theirs. And so they did not desire her company any more than she found satisfaction in theirs. In the society of those with whom she had no interest in common she well describes her state as feeling herself more alone than when alone. There was much to try her in the curiosity which prompted so many to call upon the strange poetess; but she treated this experience in a cheerful manner. She was pursued by albums, their possessors all anxious to have something written on purpose for themselves. We can understand her humorous appeal to a friend "to procure her a dragon, to be kept in her courtyard."

The life at Wavertree was very different from that in Wales in many respects. She had to face the cares and vexations of domestic life, now that she lived alone in her own house. She had to bear her part in general society. The change was not a palatable one. "How I look back upon the comparative peace and repose of Bronwylfa and Rhyllon—a walk in the hayfield—the children playing round me—my dear mother coming to call me in from the dew—and you, perhaps, making your appearance just in the 'gloaming,' with a great bunch of flowers in your kind hand! How have these things passed away from me, and how much more was I formed for their quiet happiness than for the weary part of femme celebre which I am now enacting."

A visit to Scotland in 1829 was a great event in her life. She seemed to gain fresh energy and vigour. Edinburgh was ready with a hearty welcome. Admiration was in danger of degenerating into adulation; as, for example, when a literary man, on his introduction to her, asked "whether a bat might be allowed to appear in the presence of a nightingale." On another occasion a man of eminence in the book world was honoured with a visit from her. Afterwards he was asked whether he had chanced to see the most distinguished English poetess of the day. "He made no answer," continued the narrator, "but taking me by the arm, in solemn silence, led me into the back parlour, where stood a chair in the centre of the room, isolated from the rest of the furniture: and pointing to it, said, with the profoundest reverence, in a low earnest tone. 'There she sat, sir, on that chair!'" One of the brightest parts of this bright tour was that spent with Sir Walter Scott. The recollection of her walks and talks with the great man was always a treasured memory. And so were the words with which he parted from her. "There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are one of these."

In 1830 Mrs. Hemans published her volume of Songs of the Affections. The principal of the poems, "A Spirit's Return," was suggested as the result of a favourite amusement—that of winding up the evenings by telling ghost stories. A discussion arose as to the feelings with which the presence and the speech of a visitant from another world would be most likely to impress the person so visited. Mrs. Hemans contended that the predominant sensation would partake of awe and rapture, and that the person visited must thenceforward and for ever be inevitably separated from this world and its concerns—that the soul which had once enjoyed so strange and spiritual communion must be raised by its experience too high for common grief to perplex or common joy to enliven.

"The music of another land hath spoken. No after-sound is sweet; this weary thirst!— And I have heard celestial fountains burst. What here shall quench it?"



IX.

HOME IN THE LAKE COUNTRY.

A visit to the Lakes of Westmoreland in 1830 was a source of great enjoyment to Mrs. Hemans. The beauty of the district was one attraction, but the prospect of sharing the society of Mr. Wordsworth was a greater attraction. Wearied out with the "glare and dust of celebrity," she was longing for the hills and the quiet peacefulness of the Lake country. It is needless to say that the first poetess of Nature was charmed with the first poet of Nature, and the poet with the poetess. Her letters were full of expressions of delight and keen appreciation of the privilege she was enjoying. Wordsworth was kindness itself. "I am charmed with Mr. Wordsworth, whose kindness to me has quite a soothing influence over my spirits. Oh! what relief, what blessing there is in the feeling of admiration when it can be freely poured forth! 'There is a daily beauty in his life,' which is in such lovely harmony with his poetry, that I am thankful to have witnessed and felt it."

Mrs. Hemans, after staying a fortnight at Rydal Mount, took a little cottage called Dove's Nest near the lake. Here she was joined by her children, into whose pursuits she heartily threw herself. This was a season of grateful rest to her. "How shall I tell you of all the loveliness by which I am surrounded, of all the soothing and holy influence it seems shedding down into my inmost heart! I have sometimes feared within the last two years, that the effect of suffering and adulation, and feelings too highly wrought and too severely tried, would have been to dry up within me the fountains of such peace and simple enjoyment; but now I know—"

'Nature never did betray The heart that loved her.'

"I can think of nothing but what is pure, and true, and kind; and my eyes are filled with grateful tears even whilst I am writing to you." But even to this sweet retirement she was pursued by curious tourists, "hunting for lions in doves' nests," and by letters which threatened "to boil over the drawer to which they were consigned."

She had made up her mind that it was a wise step to leave Wavertree. At one time Edinburgh was thought of as a fit place for her residence. But finally Ireland, and not Scotland, became the home of her latter days, one reason for this choice being that her brother would be near to give his advice and guidance as to her sons. In 1831 she took up her abode in Dublin, where, whilst entering very little into general society, she much enjoyed intercourse with many kindred spirits whom she gathered around her. Amongst her most valued friends were the Archbishop of Dublin and Mrs. Whately, from whom she met with marked kindness. These years in Dublin have been described as the happiest as well as the last of her life. Heading was perhaps more than ever a delight to her, especially of works of religious instruction and consolation. Bishop Hall, Leighton, and Jeremy Taylor, and other old divines afforded her great strength and refreshment, whilst the Scriptures were her daily study and delight. Wordsworth was the poet she loved best and read oftenest, never a single day during the last four years of her life being passed, unless sickness prevented, without her reading something of his.



X.

ASPIRATIONS DURING FAILING HEALIH.

"Nervous suffering" is a phrase that describes Mrs. Hemans' state of health. But still her mind was busy and her pen active, especially on subjects of a religious character. "I now feel as if bound to higher and holier tasks which, though I may occasionally lay aside, I could not long wander from without some sense of dereliction. I hope it is not self-delusion, but I cannot help sometimes feeling as if it were my true task to enlarge the sphere of sacred poetry, and extend its influence." In 1834 Hymns for Childhood and National Lyrics appeared in a collected form, and soon after the long-contemplated collection of Scenes and Hymns of Life. The aim of these may be best expressed in her own words. It was to enlarge the sphere of sacred poetry "by associating with its themes, more of the emotions, the affections, and even the pure imaginative enjoyments of daily life, than had hitherto been admitted within the hallowed circle."

Two last works were to issue from her mind and heart. The lyric "Despondency and Aspiration" was hoped to be her best production, as it was certainly her most laborious effort. On it she was anxious to concentrate all her powers. It was meant to be the prologue to a poetical work which was to be called The Christian Temple. It was her purpose, "by tracing out the workings of passion—the struggle of human affection—through various climes, and ages, and conditions of life, to illustrate the insufficiency of any dispensation, save that of an ill-embracing Christianity, to soothe the sorrows, or sustain the hopes, or fulfil the desires of an immortal being whose lot is cast in a world where cares and bereavements are many." She was never to carry out this design.

She dictated Thoughts during Sickness in the intervals of sickness, when concentrated thought was possible. Their shortness tells of the shortness of those intervals. Who is not better for thinking over these sonnets, recalling as they do a peaceful spirit of resignation and calmness at the approach of the last hour?

"Let others trembling bow, Angel of Death, before thee;—not to those Whose spirits with Eternal Truth repose Art thou a fearful shape. And, oh, for me, How full of welcome would thine aspect shine, Did not the cords of strong affection twine So fast around my soul, it cannot spring to thee."

The last of the series is entitled a "Sabbath Sonnet." It was composed by Mrs. Hemans a few days before her death, and dictated to her brother. It ends in these words—-fit words for the last utterances of a Christian poet:

"I may not tread With them those pathways—to the feverish bed Of sickness bound; yet, O my God, I bless Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness."

But we are anticipating. At the end of 1834 Mrs. Hemans was recommended to try change of air. Most kindly Archbishop Whately placed at her disposal his country seat of Redesdale, where she had every comfort. But there was a comfort she had that was not of man's making or man's giving. "Far better than these indications of recovery is the sweet religious peace which I feel gradually overshadowing me with its dove-pinions, excluding all that would exclude thoughts of God."

All around her delighted to ease her suffering and to minister to her comfort. Especially thoughtful was her faithful attendant. And well was that attendant repaid in hearing the words which fell from her mistress's lips. How bright was the testimony of the dying poetess! "I feel like a tired child wearied, and longing to mingle with the pure in heart! I feel as if I were sitting with Mary at the feet of my Redeemer, hearing the music of His voice, and learning of Him to be meek and lowly." "Oh, Anna, do not you love your kind Saviour? The plan of redemption was indeed a glorious one; humility was indeed the crowning work. I am like a quiet babe at His feet, and yet my spirit is full of His strength. When anybody speaks of His love to me, I feel as if they were too slow; my spirit can mount alone with Him into those blissful realms with far more rapidity."



XI.

"THE BETTER LAND" REACHED.

Mrs. Hemans left Redesdale to return to Dublin, so as to be near her physician. She could only leave her bed to be laid upon a couch. The sufferings were great, but there was no complaint. She would never allow those around her to speak of her state as one calling for pity. She seemed to live partly on earth, partly in heaven. "No poetry could express, nor imagination conceive, the visions of blessedness that flitted across her fancy, and made her waking hours more delightful than those even that were given to temporary repose." She would ask to be left perfectly alone, in stillness and darkness, to commune with her own heart and reflect on the mercies of her Saviour. Her trust in the atonement was entire, and often did she speak of the comfort she derived from dwelling upon that central fact. She assured a friend that the tenderness and affectionateness of the Redeemer's character, which they had often contemplated together, was now a source not merely of reliance, but of positive happiness to her—"the sweetness of her couch."

As is often the case under such circumstances, her thoughts were busy with the haunts of her childhood, the old home and the old walks. Her memory appeared unweakened. Its powers, always so great, seemed to be greater than ever. She would lie hour after hour, repeating to herself chapters of the Bible and pages of Milton and Wordsworth. When delirium came upon her, it was observed how entirely the beautiful still retained its predominance over her mind. The one material thing that gave her pleasure was to be surrounded with "flowers, fresh flowers."

Often did she thank God for the talents He had entrusted to her, and declared how much more ardently than ever her powers would have been consecrated to His service had life been prolonged. On March 15th she received the Holy Communion for the last time, one of her sons being a partaker of that feast for the first time. But the end was not to come at once. There was another flicker of life. The days that remained were spent in pious preparation, one of her favourite occupations being the listening to the reading of some of her most valued books. The Lives of Sacred Poets and the Lives of Eminent Christians, in both of which her life was soon to be worthy of a place, were especially enjoyed. In the latter book she earnestly recommended the perusal of the account of the death of Madame de Mornay, as showing in bright yet not exaggerated colours "how a Christian can die."

On the 26th of April she dictated to her brother the last strain, the "Sabbath Sonnet," to which reference has already been made. From this time she began to sink slowly but steadily. On the 12th of May she was able to read part of the 16th chapter of St. John, her favourite among the evangelists, which was the Gospel for the day, and also the Collect and Epistle. She delighted to hear passages from a book she dearly loved—a selection from the works of Archbishop Leighton. "Beautiful! beautiful!" she exclaimed. To her faithful attendant she said that "she had been making her peace with God; that she felt all at peace within her bosom."

On Saturday the 16th May, 1835, she slumbered nearly all the day: and at nine o'clock in the evening, without pain or struggle, her spirit passed away to the "Better Land."

'I hear thee speak of the better land, Thou callest its children a happy band; Mother, oh, where is that radiant shore? Shall we not seek it, and weep no more? Is it where the flower of the orange blows, And the fire-flies glance through the myrtle boughs?' 'Not there, not there, my child!'

'Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise, And the date grows ripe under sunny skies? Or 'midst the green islands of glittering seas, Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze, And strange, bright birds, on their starry wings, Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?' 'Not there, not there, my child!'

'Is it far away, in some region old, Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold? Where the burning rays of the ruby shine, And the diamond lights up the secret mine, And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand? Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?' 'Not there, not there, my child!'

'Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy, Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy; Dreams cannot picture a world so fair— Sorrow and death may not enter there: Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom, For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb,— It is there, it is there, my child!'

Her remains were laid to rest in a grave within St. Anne's Church, Dublin. A tablet records her name, her age—forty-one years—and the date of her death. There are added the following lines of her own:—

"Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now; E'en while with us thy footsteps trode, His seal was on thy brow. Dust to its narrow home beneath, Soul to its place on high; They that have seen thy look in death, No more may fear to die."



XII.

ABIDING WORDS.

Though many of the productions of the gifted poetess will soon be forgotten, there is no doubt that some will live. The subjects are those which gain an admittance to the hearts of all classes. We have already given in full that beautiful poem "The Better Land." There is no danger of "Casabianca" passing into oblivion. Children delight to commit it to memory, and are all the better for the lesson of devotion to duty they have learnt.

"Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike form.

The flames rolled on—he would not go Without his father's word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard."

Mrs. Hemans was at her best in treating of such matters as those dealt with in "The Homes of England" and "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers." Any one is to be pitied who can read without admiration these lines from the former:—