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Forty years later, when Wilberforce was moving heaven and earth for abolition, Newton preached on the same side, and wrote his “Thoughts upon the African Slave-Trade," denouncing it unsparingly. "I am bound in conscience," he says, "to take shame to myself by a public confession, which, however sincere, comes too late to prevent or repair the misery and mischief to which I have formerly been accessory." And he adds,—what is probably just,—“Perhaps what I have said of myself may be applicable to the nation at large. The slave-trade was always unjustifiable, but inattention and self-interest prevented for a time the evil from being perceived." Newton's religiousness was unquestionably sincere and real, but his morality in this matter cannot be said to be of the highest kind, and both now and after he displays a want of deep reflection, as well as some selfishness of character. His "Cardiphonia" contains passages which are hardly surpassed for their beauty and earnest zeal towards God. And there, more than anywhere else that I know of, the large-heartedness of the man appears. He has come to the conclusion, even in the first letter (1775), that "observation and experience contribute, by the grace of God, gradually to soften and sweeten our spirits;" that Protestants, Papists, Socinians, are all his neighbours; and that he must not expect them to see with his eyes. Here speaks the man, not the theologian; for his sight was narrow as his heart was large. He is always seeking to interpret every 'dispensation;" if he cannot do it at the moment, he is sure the interpretation will soon come. He cannot understand why Molly P. should have the small-pox at such an inconvenient time, and is surprised that his prayers for her have not yet been heard. In short, no man perhaps ever had a stronger faith in God's personal love for him; but that "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof," was more apparently than had taken possession of his mind. The same kind of spirit is shown in his taking a lottery ticket some years afterwards, supposing that "his vow and his design of usefulness therein sanctioned his hope that the Lord would give him a prize.

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Severe illness brought Newton's seafaring life to an end, and he obtained the post of tide surveyor at Liverpool. During the time that he held it he was brought much into contact with Whitefield, and to some degree also with Wesley. In 1764, after difficulties which he showed great courage in overcoming, he was ordained to the curacy of Olney. There can be no question that the step was taken from a love for the souls of men, and that it was done at a great personal sacrifice. The same year he made the acquaintance of Wilberforce, and of John Thornton.†

* I cannot forbear referring to Sir James Stephen's wise and weighty words concerning Newton. I had not read them until the above was in type, but it is gratifying to be able to claim him in support of my view. Essay on the Evangelical Succession, p. 114.

John Thornton was born in 1720, and succeeded his father as a Russian merchant. He was remarkably keen and skilful in business, and to the end of his life was always on the look-out for good investments. There is a story that he strolled along Cork harbour, when an old man, saw a freight of tallow come in, and made a vast sum by buying it at once, then strolled into a nursery ground, and with the profits he had just made set an impoverished man on his feet. But his greatest acts of generosity, whether wise or unwise, were towards ministers of religion. He

The latter formed so high an opinion of him that he made him an allowance of £200 a year, mainly with the view of enabling him to keep open house, and so to influence the more people for good.

The labours of Newton (who lived till 1807) are of course no part of our subject, except so far as they illustrate Cowper's life. To the latter we therefore now pass on. The house in which he now took up his residence is in the market-place at Olney. It was called Orchard Side. The vicarage, in which Newton lived, was close by, and he said afterwards that for twelve years he and Cowper were hardly ever twelve hours apart. "The first six," he adds, "were spent in admiring and trying to imitate him; during the second six I walked with him in the shadow of death.”

Olney lies on the Ouse at the northern extremity of Buckinghamshire.* It is not an attractive town, and the staple occupations of its inhabitants, and whole neighbourhood, lacemaking and strawplaiting, were, and still are, very prejudicial to health, wealth, and godliness. The vicar, Moses Browne, was an absentee through debt, and there were no gentry. Cowper was commonly known there as "Sir Cowper." Newton fell in with the popular appellation, and calls him so often in his letters. Cowper says, later, in one of his letters, "We have

"One parson, one poet, one bellman, one crier,

And the poor poet is the only squire."

To minister among the poor here was a task requiring great energy and courage, arduous and, as far as this world is concerned, thankless. Newton, who had wonderful bodily strength and nerve, enjoyed it thoroughly, but certainly it was not suitable labour for the nervous, sensitive invalid, who now under Newton's guidance undertook it. He visited indefatigably, and read and prayed with the sick. Newton had started prayer-meetings at an uninhabited house in the town belonging to Lord Dartmouth,-the "Great House" it was called,-and the heat and excitement of these may be judged by any one who reads Newton's account. We need not say what a contrast such devotions were to the daily prayers in Huntingdon Church, and few will doubt that the change was not for the better to Cowper. But who would not tremble for the result when

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we add to this that he himself was called to take part in, sometimes to lead, the extempore prayers-he who had said of himself, when called on to qualify for his clerkship, "that doing anything in public was mortal poison" to him! Mr. Bull quotes the saying of some one who was there, that he never heard praying that equalled Mr. Cowper's." But it was at a terrible cost. Nor was this all. He lost his regular exercise. He had been accustomed to a quiet evening walk, but "now," he says to Lady Hesketh, "we have

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sermon or lecture every evening, which lasts till supper-time.”

bought up livings, and bestowed them on truly religious" ministers. His sister married Wilberforce's uncle, and the Evangelicalism of Wilberforce was owing to this connexion. Thornton died in 1790. It was his brother-in-law, Dr. Conyers, who introduced Newton to Cowper *The most interesting description which has been written of Olney and its neighbourhood is that of Hugh Miller, in his "First Impressions of England."

Mr. Bull gives several letters from Mr. Newton belonging to this period. That they breathe real piety needs not to be said; but they are not altogether pleasing to read. Instead of enlarging upon God's care for His creatures, and His mercy toward every soul which seeks after Him, he gives highly-wrought pictures of particular providences, and searches after God's love in religious excitement. The Lord is to be found not in the still small voice, but in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Where these are not, so it might seem, God is not. As long as these feelings were kept alive by the unhealthful religious stimulants, Cowper could boast of his "decided Christian happiness. But a time comes when stimulants fail to act, and then reaction comes, and ruin with it.

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Threatenings appeared from a very early period of his residence at Olney. In a letter to Hill, for instance, dated June 16, 1768, he expresses his belief that his life is drawing to an end. All his letters are upon religious topics, and generally gloomy in tone; he drops his old friends, and even writes chilling letters to Hill- one declining an invitation, another in reply to the announcement of his marriage. The common idea that his first years at Olney were happy ones is certainly not well-founded.

His melancholy was greatly increased by the death of his brother, which took place at Cambridge in March 1770. Their affection from infancy had been unbroken, and Cowper mourned for him deeply. He gave expression to his feelings by writing a memoir of him, which was afterwards published by Newton. (No. 9 in List of Works, p. xviii. See also the "Time Piece," 780-787.) His brother left £700, but £350 were owed to his college; the rest was transferred to Cowper's account by Hill. But he speaks of himself as being a considerable loser by his brother's death. He must therefore have received a regular allowance from him as well as from his other relatives.*

In 1771 Mr. Newton proposed that they should jointly compose a volume of hymns, partly "for the promotion of the faith and comfort of sincere Christians," partly to perpetuate the memory of their friendship. The work was undertaken, but not completed for 8 years. It was then published with this title :

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The volume is dated Olney, February 15, 1779, and contains 348 hymns, Cowper's being distinguished by a C.

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Many of these compositions have become so popular, that a collection of hymns without them would seem incomplete. Such, for example, is Newton's "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds. There are others which are not in the least suited for congregational worship. Poems, for example, like the seventh in the present volume are not acts of worship, but diatribes. Some begin as prayers, but trail off into sermons, like the 22d. But all Cowper's hymns throw light upon his mental state at the time, and there are several allusions to the circumstances of his life. Such compositions as Nos. 8 and 9, the one written in joy, the other in sadness,—are not only beautiful, but such as probably all faithful Christians at one time or another are ready to adopt. But it is different with such pieces as Nos. 37-44. The expressions of assurance are hardly to be distinguished from cries of despair. "Assurance of salvation" is a cardinal point in the Calvinist's creed, and it would not be difficult to lay one's hand upon a remarkable case in which great physical energy and exuberant animal spirits joined with this assurance have given wonderful life and power to a preacher. Preaching comes so easy in such a case, there is no attempt to grapple with the hard problems which perplex more subtle and thoughtful minds, there is an impatience of them; the creed is an easy one to its holder, and he goes on his way rejoicing. But Cowper's mind was a delicate one, his brain restless and busy; the full assurance which on Newton's word he held to be necessary was a physical impossibility with him, and thereof came despondency and sadness. The high wave is not more naturally followed by the deep trough. Brooding over his morbid sensations increased them; his mind oscillated fearfully on the balance between assurance of salvation, and assurance of perdition, till his whole being reeled and tottered. Before the work had proceeded very far, he was a second time insane. This accounts for the fact that eight years elapsed between the projection of the Olney Hymns and their publication. The return of his malady also put a stop to his intended marriage with Mrs. Unwin. Their engagement has been warmly denied. Southey writes: "I believe it to be utterly unfounded; for that no such engagement was either known or suspected by Mr. Newton I am enabled to assert, and who can suppose that it would have been concealed from him?" On what ground he makes this assertion he does not say, but there is an assertion on the other side, lately made known, of which the truth cannot be doubted. Mr. Bull, in his Memorials of Newton, declares that again and again he had heard his father say that they were about to be married when Cowper's malady returned in 1773, and that Bull knew this from Mrs. Unwin herself. And then he adds the following extract from Newton's hitherto unpublished diary :

"They were congenial spirits, united in the faith and hope of the gospel, and their intimate and growing friendship led them in the course of four or five years to an engagement of marriage,

which was well known to me, and to most of their and my friends, and was to have taken place in a few months, but was prevented by the terrible malady which seized him about that time.'

This settles the question, and shows that Southey was mistaken. The evidence from Cowper's own letters is too slight to build upon, but, viewed in the light of the positive statement, it is confirmatory. Cowper must have known that, as far as society is concerned, he was in a false position with regard to Mrs. Unwin. He could hardly expect that his excellent and pure life would secure them from ill-natured remarks, nor did it; but it is moreover natural to suppose that their feelings towards each other had changed. Her kindness at first had recalled to his memory the love of his long-lost mother; he had leaned upon her and admired her. But after her husband's death her kindness was no longer that of the wife of an old man, it was that of a woman only four or five years his senior. And thus friendship, trust, and admiration, ended in marriage engagement. Cowper's condition from this time forward was not such as to render a renewal of their hopes possible, and there is no further evidence upon the subject. But the fact as now stated throws light upon a matter which will find its due place in our history, and which has caused much perplexity.

The second attack of insanity came on by degrees. His letters at this time, as well as the Olney Hymns, show his oscillations of spirit.

The following extracts from the Memorials of Newton are painfully expressive :"Tuesday, July 7 [1772].—Time fully taken up in visiting and receiving visits. Preached at the Great House from Heb. ii. 18, to which I was led by Mr. Cowper's prayer."

Next day, in a letter to his wife, he says :—

"Dear Sir Cowper is in the depths as much as ever.

The manner of his prayer

last night led me to speak from Heb. ii. 18. I do not think he was much the better for it, but perhaps it might suit others."

Not the better for it! No, for most unwittingly Newton has created a Frankenstein, and is now sorrowing that he cannot control it.*

On January 2, 1773, Newton writes thus :

"My time and thoughts much engrossed to-day by an afflicting and critical dispensation at Orchard Side. I was sent for early this morning, and returned astonished and grieved."

There was too sad reason for grief. The poor lunatic had again attempted his life, and he repeated the attempt more than once. He became persuaded that it was the sovereign wili of God that he should do so, and because he failed, he believed himself condemned to double perdition. He ceased not only from public worship,

"I believe my name is up about the country for preaching people mad; for whether it is owing to the sedentary life the women lead here, poring over their [lace] pillows for ten or twelve hours every day, and breathing confined air in their crowded little rooms, or whatever may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen in different degrees disordered in their heads, and most of them, I believe, truly gracious people."-Letter of Newton to Thornton.

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