Him, on whom both our mortal and immortal life depend, and blessed be his name! it is the word of one who wounds only that he may heal, and who waits to be gracious. The language of every such dispensation is, "Prepare to meet thy God." It speaks with the voice of mercy and goodness, for without such notices, whatever preparation we might make for other events, we should make none for this. My dear friend, I desire and pray, that when this last enemy shall come to execute an unlimited commission upon us, we may be found ready, being established and rooted in a well-grounded faith in His name, who conquered and triumphed over him upon his Cross. Yours ever, W. C. The temper in which this was received may be understood from Cowper's reply to the letter that answered it15. "I have a moment to spare, to tell you that your letter is just come to hand, and to thank you for it. I do assure you, the gentleness and candour of your manner engages my affection to you very much. You answer with mildness to an admonition which would have provoked many to anger. I have not time to add more, except just to hint, that if I am ever enabled to look forward to death with comfort, which, I thank God, is sometimes the case with me, I do not take my view of it from the top of my own works and deservings, though God is witness that the labour of my life is to keep a conscience void of offence towards Him. He is always formidable to me, but when I see him disarmed of his sting, by having sheathed it in the body of Christ Jesus." Soon afterwards Hill invited him to London, wishing no doubt to bring him again into the circle of his relations, and within the influence of more genial circumstances. He replied: DEAR JOE, 1769. Sir Thomas crosses the Alps, and Sir Cowper, for that is his title at Olney, prefers his home to any other spot of earth in the world. Horace, observing this difference of temper in different persons, cried out a good many years ago, in the true spirit of poetry, "How much one man differs from another!" This does not seem a very sublime exclamation in English, but I remember we were taught to admire it in the original. 15 Jan. 29, 1769. My dear friend, I am obliged to you for your invitation: but being long accustomed to retirement, which I was always fond of, I am now more than ever unwilling to revisit those noisy and crowded scenes, which I never loved, and which I now abhor. I remember you with all the friendship I ever professed, which is as much as I ever entertained for any man. But the strange and uncommon incidents of my life have given an entire new turn to my whole character and conduct, and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure from the same employments and amusements of which I could readily partake in former days. I love you and yours; I thank you for your continued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to be their and your W. C. Affectionate friend, and servant, In the September of this year, he was summoned to Cambridge by a letter, stating that his brother was dangerously ill; he found him so on his arrival, but after ten days left him so far restored as to ride many miles without fatigue, and to have every symptom of returning health. These were fallacious symptoms. Cowper was again summoned in the ensuing February, and the case then had become desperate. The physician, says he, writing to his cousin, Mrs. Cowper, "has little hope of his recovery, I believe I might say none at all, only being a friend he does not formally give him over by ceasing to visit him, lest it should sink his spirits. For my own part I have no expectation of his recovery, except by a signal interposition of Providence in answer to prayer. His case is clearly out of the reach of medicine; but I have seen many a sickness healed, where the danger has been equally threatening, by the only physician of value. I doubt not he will have an interest in your prayers, as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord incline his ear, and give an answer of peace. I know it is good to be afflicted. I trust that you have found it so, and that under the teaching of God's own Spirit we shall both be purified. It is the desire of my soul to seek a better country, where God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people; and where, looking back upon the ways by which he has led us, we shall be filled with everlasting wonder, love, and praise 16" John Cowper died on the 20th of that month. The remarkable circumstances of his illness and death were related by his 16 March 5, 1770. brother in letters written at or about the time, and afterwards in a connected narrative. MY DEAR FRIEND, TO THE REV. W. UNWIN 17. March 31, 1770. I am glad that the Lord made you a fellow-labourer with us, in praying my dear brother out of darkness into light. It was a blessed work, and when it shall be your turn to die in the Lord, and to rest from all your labours, that work shall follow you. I once entertained hopes of his recovery: from the moment when it pleased God to give him light in his soul, there was for four days such a visible amendment in his body as surprised us all. Dr. Glinn himself was puzzled, and began to think that all his threatening conjectures would fail of their accomplishment. I am well satisfied, that it was thus ordered, not for his own sake, but for the sake of us who had been so deeply concerned for his spiritual welfare, that he might be able to give such evident proof of the work of Gad upon his soul as should leave no doubt behind it. As to his friends at Cambridge they knew nothing of the matter. He never spoke of these things but to myself, nor to me when others were within hearing, except that he sometimes would speak in the presence of the nurse. He knew well to make the distinction between those who could understand him, and those who could not; and that he was not in circumstances to maintain such a controversy as a declaration of his new views and sentiments would have exposed him to. Just after his death I spoke of this change to a dear friend of his, a fellow of the college, who had attended him through all his sickness with assiduity and tenderness. But he did not understand me. I now proceed to mention such particulars as I can recollect, and which I had not an opportunity to insert in my letters to Olney; for I left Cambridge suddenly, and sooner than I expected. He was deeply impressed with a sense of the difficulties he should have to encounter, if it should please God to raise him again. He saw the necessity of being faithful, and the opposition he should expose himself to by being so. Under the weight of these thoughts he one day broke out in the following prayer, 17 This letter in Hayley is addressed to Mr. Newton; but the original is in my hands: it is the earliest in Mr. Unwin's collection. None of the letters to Olney which are mentioned in it seem to have been preserved. when only myself was with him. "O Lord, thou art light; and in thee is no darkness at all. Thou art the fountain of all wisdom, and it is essential to thee to be good and gracious. I am a child, O Lord, teach me how I should conduct myself! Give me the wisdom of the serpent, with the harmlessness of the dove! Bless the souls that thou hast committed to the care of thy helpless, miserable creature, who has no wisdom or knowledge of his own, and make me faithful to them for thy mercy's sake!" Another time he said, "How wonderful it is that God should look upon man, and how much more wonderful that he should look upon such a worm as I am! Yet he does look upon me, and takes the exactest notice of all my sufferings. He is present, and I see him (I mean by faith); and he stretches out his arms towards me"-and he then stretched out his own "and he says, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!" He smiled and wept when he spoke these words. When he expressed himself upon these subjects, there was a weight and a dignity in his manner such as I never saw before. He spoke with the greatest deliberation, making a pause at the end of every sentence; and there was something in his air and in the tone of his voice inexpressibly solemn, unlike himself, unlike what I had ever seen in another. This hath God wrought. I have praised him for his marvellous act, and have felt a joy of heart upon the subject of my brother's death, such as I never felt but in my own conversion. He is now before the throne; and yet a little while, and we shall meet never more to be divided. Yours, my very dear friend, with my affectionate respects to yourself, and yours, W. C. Postscript. A day or two before his death he grew so weak and was so very ill, that he required continual attendance, so that he had neither strength nor opportunity to say much to me. Only the day before, he said he had had a sleepless, but a composed and quiet night. I asked him if he had been able to collect his thoughts. He replied: "All night long I have endeavoured to think upon God and to continue in prayer. I had great peace and comfort; and what comfort I had came in that way. ." When I saw him the next morning at seven o'clock, he was dying, fast asleep, and exempted, in all appearance, from the sense of those pangs which accompany dissolution. I shall be glad to hear from you, my dear friend, when you can find time to write, and are so inclined. The death of my beloved brother teems with many useful lessons. May God seal the instruction upon our hearts! To Mrs. Cowper he says, "You judge rightly of the manner in which I have been affected by the Lord's late dispensation towards my brother. I found in it cause of sorrow that I had lost so near a relation, and one so deservedly dear to me, and that he left me just when our sentiments upon the most interesting subject became the same; but much more cause of joy that it pleased God to give me clear and evident proof that he had changed his heart, and adopted him into the number of his children. For this I hold myself peculiarly bound to thank him, because he might have done all that he was pleased to do for him, and yet have afforded him neither strength nor opportunity to declare it. I doubt not that He enlightens the understandings, and works a gracious change in the hearts of many in their last moments, whose surrounding friends are not made acquainted with it. "He told me that, from the time he was first ordained, he began to be dissatisfied with his religious opinions, and to suspect that there were greater things concealed in the Bible than were generally believed, or allowed, to be there. From the time when I first visited him, after my release from St. Alban's, he began to read upon the subject. It was at that time I informed him of the views of divine truth which I had received in that school of affliction. He laid what I said to heart, and began to furnish himself with the best writers upon the controverted points, whose works he read with great diligence and attention, comparing them all the while with the Scripture. None ever truly and ingenuously sought the truth, but they found it. A spirit of earnest enquiry is the gift of God, who never says to any, seek ye my face in vain. Accordingly, about en days before his death, it pleased the Lord to dispel all his doubts, and to reveal in his heart the knowledge of the Saviour, and to give him firm and unshaken peace in the belief of his ability nad willingness to save. As to the affair of the fortune-teller, he never mentioned it to me, nor was there any such paper found as you mention. I looked over all his papers before I left the place, and had there been such a one must have discovered it. I have heard the report from other quarters, but no other particulars than that the woman foretold him when he should |