of my restoration to Christian privileges as now ;-in short, that I converse too much with the people of the world, and find too much pleasure in doing so. He concludes with putting your mother in mind, that there is still an intercourse between London and Olney, by which he means to insinuate that we cannot offend against the decorum that we are bound to observe, but the news of it will most certainly be conveyed to him. We do not at all doubt it. We never knew a lie hatched at Olney that waited long for a bearer; and though we do not wonder to find ourselves made the subjects of false accusation in a place ever fruitful in such productions, we do, and must wonder a little, that he should listen to them with so much credulity. I say this, because if he had heard only the truth, or had believed no more than the truth, he would not, I think, have found either me censurable, or your mother. And that she should be suspected of irregularities is the more wonderful, (for wonderful it would be at any rate,) because she sent him, not long before, a letter conceived in such strains of piety and spirituality, as ought to have convinced him that she, at least, was no wanderer. But what is the fact; and how do we spend our time in reality? What are the deeds for which we have been represented as thus criminal? Our present course of life differs in nothing from that which we have both held these thirteen years, except that, after great civilities shown us, and many advances made on the part of the Throcks, we visit them. That we visit also at Gayhurst. That we have frequently taken airings with my cousin in her carriage, and that I have sometimes taken a walk with her on a Sunday evening, and sometimes by myself; which, however, your mother has never done. These are the only novelties in our practice; and if by these procedures, so inoffensive in themselves, we yet give offence, offence must needs be given. God and our own consciences acquit us, and we acknowledge no other judges.

"The two families with whom we have kicked up this astonishing intercourse are as harmless in their conversation and manners as can be found any where. And as to my poor cousin, the only crime that she is guilty of against the people of Olney is, that she has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and administered comfort to the sick. Except, indeed, that by her great kindness, she has given us a little lift in point of

condition and circumstances, and has thereby excited envy in some who have not the knack of rejoicing in the prosperity of others. And this I take to be the root of the matter.

66

'My dear William, I do not know that I should have teased your nerves and spirits with this disagreeable theme, had not Mr. Newton talked of applying to you for particulars : he would have done it, he says, when he saw you last, but had not time. You are now qualified to inform him as minutely as we ourselves could, of all our enormities. Adieu! Our sincerest love to yourself and yours. "WM. C."

A spirit so intolerant and inquisitorial might have been deemed harsh and unbecoming even in a father confessor. But it will not appear surprising in Mr. Newton, when it is remembered that, in his own words, his " name was up about that country for preaching people mad;" that, according to his own account, there were at one time "near a dozen of his flock," and "most of them truly gracious people, disordered in their minds ;" and that he consoled himself with thinking, that "if the Lord brought them through fire and water safe to his kingdom, whatever they might suffer by the way, they were less to be pitied than the mad people of the world, who take occasion to scoff at the Gospel, as if it was only fit to drive people out of their senses.' It was not, however, by fiery and sulphureous preaching that Mr. Newton produced these deplorable effects; if he did not perceive the enormous evil of such preaching, he saw and acknowledged its unfitness. Moreover, he was a man in whom invincible strength of heart was combined with no ordinary degree of tenderness. The mischief which he caused, was effected by a system of excitement, by supererogatory services, by holding meetings which accord as little with the spirit as with the discipline of the Church of England, by making the yoke of his people painful and their burthen heavy, by requiring them to commune with others upon those things on which our Saviour has enjoined us to commune with our own hearts, and by never allowing them to be still.

His zeal and his genius, aided by the remarkable story of his life, had rendered him a conspicuous personage in what is called the religious world. Among those who were begin

61 P. 185.

ning to arrogate to themselves the designation of Evangelical clergy, there were none who approached him in abilities except Rowland Hill and the fierce Toplady. But spiritual pride treads close upon the heels of spiritual power; and that besetting sin manifested itself on this occasion towards Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. While he resided at Olney he had acted as their spiritual director,.. for that character is not confined to the Romish priesthood; . . and when, upon his removal to London, they ceased to be under his superintendence, he appears to have considered it as a trespass if they moved out of the narrow circle within which he had circumscribed them; and " as absent in the body, but present in spirit," to have supposed that he, like St. Paul, was authorized to "judge as though he were present." How Cowper resented this unwarrantable interference has been seen in his letter to Mr. Unwin, towards whom he had no reserve; he must have been void of feeling if he had not felt as he there expressed himself. But when he wrote to Mr. Newton, the sense of former obligations and kindnesses, of true respect, and of as much affection as is compatible with any degree of fear, tempered his resentment. Mr. Newton, methinks, could not have read without emotion, nor without some self-reproach, the calm and melancholy strain of vindication in which he was addressed.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

Sept. 30, 1786.

No length of separation will ever make us indifferent either to your pleasures or your pains. We rejoice that you have had so agreeable a jaunt, and (excepting Mrs. Newton's terrible fall, from which, however, we are happy to find that she received so little injury,) a safe return. We, who live always encompassed by rural scenery, can afford to be stationary; though we ourselves, were I not too closely engaged with Homer, should perhaps follow your example, and seek a little refreshment from variety and change of place,—a course that we might find not only agreeable, but, after a sameness of thirteen years, perhaps useful. You must, undoubtedly, have found your excursion beneficial, who at all other times endure if not so close a confinement as we, yet a more unhealthy one, in city air and in the centre of continual engagements.

Your letter to Mrs. Unwin, concerning our conduct and the

offence taken at it in our neighbourhood, gave us both a great deal of concern; and she is still deeply affected by it. Of this you may assure yourself, that if our friends in London have been grieved, they have been misinformed; which is the more probable, because the bearers of intelligence hence to London are not always very scrupulous concerning the truth of their reports; and that if any of our serious neighbours have been astonished, they have been so without the smallest real occasion. Poor people are never well employed even when they judge one another; but when they undertake to scan the motives and estimate the behaviour of those whom Providence has exalted a little above them, they are utterly out of their province and their depth. They often see us get into Lady Hesketh's carriage, and rather uncharitably suppose that it always carries us into a scene of dissipation, which in fact it never does. We visit, indeed, at Mr. Throckmorton's and at Gayhurst; rarely, however, at Gayhurst, on account of the greater distance: more frequently, though not very frequently, at Weston, both because it is nearer, and because our business in the house that is making ready for us often calls us that way. The rest of our journeys are to Beaujeat turnpike and back again; or, perhaps, to the cabinet-maker's at Newport. As Othello says,

The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more.

What good we can get or can do in these visits, is another question, which they, I am sure, are not at all qualified to solve. Of this we are both sure, that under the guidance of Providence we have formed these connexions; that we should have hurt the Christian cause, rather than have served it, by a prudish abstinence from them; and that St. Paul himself, conducted to them as we have been, would have found it expedient to have done as we have done. It is always impossible to conjecture, to much purpose, from the beginnings of a providence, in what it will terminate. If we have neither received nor communicated any spiritual good at present, while conversant with our new acquaintance, at least no harm has befallen on either side; and it were too hazardous an assertion even for our censorious neighbours to make, that, because the cause of the Gospel does not appear to have been served at present, therefore it never can be in any future intercourse

that we may have with them. In the mean time I speak a strict truth, and as in the sight of God, when I say that we are neither of us at all more addicted to gadding than heretofore. We both naturally love seclusion from company, and never go into it without putting a force upon our disposition; at the same time I will confess, and you will easily conceive, that the melancholy incident to such close confinement as we have so long endured, finds itself a little relieved by such amusements as a society so innocent affords. You may look round the Christian world, and find few, I believe, of our station, who have so little intercourse as we with the world that is not Christian.

We place all the uneasiness that you have felt for us upon this subject, to the account of that cordial friendship of which you have long given us proof. But you may be assured, that notwithstanding all rumours to the contrary, we are exactly what we were when you saw us last;-I, miserable on account of God's departure from me, which I believe to be final; and she, seeking his return to me in the path of duty, and by continual prayer 62. Yours, my dear friend, W. C.

Cowper retained no resentments; nor indeed could any uncomfortable feeling be of long continuance between two persons who entertained so sincere a regard for each other. Their correspondence, therefore, resumed its wonted tone, being interrupted only on Cowper's part by the hurry and confusion consequent upon a removal. Lady Hesketh remained at Olney

62 I think it fitting here to extract Mr. Grimshawe's remarks upon this transaction." That the above letter may be fully understood, it is necessary to state, that Mr. Newton had received an intimation from Olney that the habits of Cowper, since the arrival of Lady Hesketh, had experienced a change; and that an admonitory letter from himself might not be without its use. Under these circumstances, Newton addressed such a letter to his friend as the occasion seemed to require. The answer of Cowper is already before the reader, and in our opinion amounts to a full justification of the poet's conduct. We know from various testimonies of unquestionable authority, that no charge tending to impeach the consistency of Mrs. Unwin, or of Cowper, can justly be alleged. If Newton should be considered as giving too easy a credence to these reports, or too rigid and ascetic in his spirit, we conceive that he could not, consistently with his own views as a faithful minister, and his deep interest in the welfare of Cowper, have acted otherwise, though he may possibly have expressed himself too strongly."-Vol. ii. pp. 220—1.