CHAPTER VII.

"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." CHRIST'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

It is the author's design to draw a faithful picture of Mary's life, and the reader's attention is kindly solicited to this chapter, which will describe her feelings for a year or two previous to her obtaining a hope.

Her mind was long clouded with the most distressing doubts, and she frequently passed through seasons of fasting, penitence, and prayer, which have often reminded me of the horrid gloom which settled upon the soul of the pious Cowper. But they were not characterized by such awful elements of thick darkness and despair as that cloud which settled like the mantle of night over his broken spirit. For he has said of himself, with graphic power,

"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd

Long since; with many an arrow deep infixed
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades."

They were rather seasons of deep heartsearching and self-scrutiny, which every Christian who makes unusual attainments in grace often experiences. They are the necessary exercises of the mind when it pierces the recesses of the soul by the light and guidance of eternal truth. They are truly philosophical, as much so as the tears Newton shed when he learned his own insignificance from the grandeur of the heavens. How many tears are shed by the child of God in his closet, and how often does the cloud of sadness rest upon his brow amid the walks of life, from doubt and uncertainty respecting his spiritual state! How protracted is the struggle through which he must pass; how many days and nights he must consume in watchfulness and devotion before he gains that bold eminence in the straight and narrow way which leads to his Father's house, where, with unclouded vision and enraptured soul, he casts his eye beyond the blue-waved Jordan,

"To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where his possessions lie."

These mounts of vision greet the footsteps of the Christian only at long intervals, and between

them lie the dark and dreary deserts, where "no water is."

As the infinite purity of God's moral character flashes in upon the solitude of his bosom, the first language of his soul is, "how can I appear before the Almighty, for I am a man of impure lips?" And his bursting heart can only send forth this petition to the skies, "God be merciful to me a sinner." These are the moments when the grace of humility is in its most lovely and vigorous exercise.

Humility is a gracious exercise of the mind towards God, in making a correct estimate of ourselves. It is thinking God's thoughts of us. If any one reads this work who would like to pass over this chapter in Mary's history, let him pause a moment, and ask himself if he thinks it desirable for an immortal being to be deceived. Is it not better to discover that we are infected with leprosy, and apply to the Great Physician in this world, than to pass on, covered with pollution, to the judgment, where " the balm of Gilead" will not avail him if he be unclothed with the righteousness of the saints? Humility is an active exercise. "Humble yourselves in the sight of God," is Jehovah's command. But in Christ's

kingdom we are entirely passive in exaltation; for those that humble themselves shall be lifted up.

This estimate contemplates two distinct aspects of our being—the physical and moral. Many have deceived themselves and others by an humble estimate of their physical powers. The astronomer, while piercing the home of other systems, casts himself into the dust, and while wonder fills his soul, physical humility pervades his bosom. But all the universe he sees is only the outer court of God's temple, of which the earth is an atom, and man an atom of an atom world. No wonder that he thinks himself a worm of the dust. Yet he is too proud to bow his will to the mighty architect of those wheeling systems, neither will he worship at the Cross, that mystery, more stupendous than all, or acknowledge himself a poor hell-deserving sinner, with all his physical abasement. Mrs. Barbauld has fascinated the world with her philosophical pictures of man in his contrast with mightier objects, and embellished them with the bewitching melody of song; but some of her best estimates are only physical, and she no where pros

trates man under the shadow of the cross of his Redeemer.

La Place, the great French astronomer, has left on record some of the sublimest bursts of feeling of the same kind. But when Job exclaimed, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes," he reached a higher standard of moral excellence than La Place ever thought of.

1 well remember a remark which fell from the lips of an eminent divine of our country a few years since. Said he, "I have read with more pleasure the picture of Payson's heart, written in his closet, than the wrapt and almost inspired measures of Mrs. Barbauld."

Perhaps his eye may glance over the precious fragments of Mary's Journal, if this little work should wander to the scene of his ministry on the heights of Brooklyn.

I have mentioned that she habitually kept a diary; but unfortunately she destroyed it all, except the following vestiges which have survived the ruin. Their present existence may be attributed to the fact that they were sketched on the blank sides of a few stray leaves of an old account book, and probably escaped her notice. They are given as perfectly as they could be deciphered.