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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 God 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 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, 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 shall conduct myself! Give me the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove! Bless the souls 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, WILLIAM COWPER.

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!

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THE SAME SUBJECT-EARNESTNESS OF HIS BROTHER IN SEARCH OF

DIVINE TRUTH.

May 8, 1770. DEAR JOE, Your letter did not reach me till the last post, when I had not time to answer it. I left Cambridge immediately after my brother's death.

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I am obliged to you for the particular account you have sent me * He to whom I have surrendered myself and all my concerns has otherwise appointed, and let His will be done. He gives me much which he withholds from others; and if he was pleased to withhold all that makes an outward difference between me and the poor mendicant in the street, it would still become me to say, His will be done.

It pleased God to cut short my brother's connections and expectations here, yet not without giving him lively and glorious views of a better happiness than any he could propose to himself in such a world as this. Notwithstanding his great learning (for he was one of the chief men in the university in that respect) he was candid and sincere in his inquiries after truth. Though he could not come into my sentiments when I first acquainted him with them, nor, in the many conversations which I afterward had with him upon the subject, could he be brought to acquiesce in them as scriptural and true, yet I had no sooner left St Albans than he began to study with the deepest attention those points in which we differed, and to furnish himself with the best writers upon them. His mind was kept open to conviction for five years, during all which time he laboured in this pursuit with unwearied diligence, as leisure and opportunity were afforded. Amongst his dying words were these, “Brother, I thought you wrong, yet wanted to believe as you did. I found myself not able to believe, yet always thought I should be one day brought to do so.” From the study of books, he was brought upon his death-bed to the study of himself, and there learnt to renounce his righteousness, and his own most amiable character, and to submit himself to the righteousness which is of God by faith. With these views he was desirous of death. Satisfied of his interest in the blessing purchased by the blood of Christ, he prayed for death with carnestness, felt the approaches of it with joy, and died in peace. Yours, my dear friend, W. C.

33.TO MRS COWPER.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

OLNEY, June 7, 1770..

MY DEAR COUSIN, -I am obliged to you for sometimes thinking of an unseen friend, and bestowing a letter upon me. It gives me pleasure to hear from you, especially to find that our gracious Lord enables you to weather out the storms you meet with, and to cast anchor within the veil.

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 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 Albans, 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 inquiry is the gift of God, who never says to any, Seek ye my face in vain. Accordingly, about ten days before his death, it pleased the Lord to dispel all his doubts, to reveal in his heart the knowledge of the Saviour, and to give him firm and unshaken peace in the belief of his ability and 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 die. I suppose there may be some truth in the matter, but whatever he might think of it before his knowledge of the truth, and however extraordinary her predictions might really be, I am satisfied that he had then received far other views of the wisdom and majesty of God, than to suppose that he would intrust his secret counsels to a vagrant, who did not mean, I suppose, to be understood to have received her intelligence from the Fountain of Light, but thought herself sufficiently honoured by any who would give her credit for a secret intercourse of this kind with the Prince of Darkness.

Mrs Unwin is much obliged to you for your kind inquiry after her. She is well, I thank God, as usual, and sends her respects to you. Her son is in the ministry, and has the living of Stock, in Essex. We were last week alarmed with an account of his being dangerously ill; Mrs Unwin went to see him, and in a few days left him out of danger.

W. C.

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THANKS FOR FORMER INSTANCES OF FRIENDSHIP DECLINES AN INVITATION TO LEAVE OLNEY.

September 25, 1770.

DEAR JOE,—I have not done conversing with terrestrial objects, though I should be happy were I able to hold more continual converse with a Friend above the skies. He has my heart, but he allows a corner in it for all who shew me kindness, and therefore one for you. The storm of sixty-three made a wreck of the friendships I had contracted in the course of many years, yours excepted, which has survived the tempest.

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I thank you for your repeated invitation. Singular thanks are due to you for so singular an instance of your regard. could not leave Olney, unless in a case of absolute necessity, without much inconvenience to myself and others. W. C.

An interruption of eight years now takes place in the correspondence of Cowper, occasioned by a second severe visitation of his malady, as related in the Memoir.

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COWPER DECLINES TO ADDRESS LORD CHANCELLOR THURLOW-HIS REASONS.

June 18, 1778.

DEAR UNWIN, -I feel myself much obliged to you for your kind intimation, and have given the subject of it all my best attention, both before I received your letter and since. The result is, that I am persuaded it will be better not to write. I know the man and his disposition well: he is very liberal in his way of thinking, generous and discerning. He is well aware of the tricks that are played upon such occasions, and, after fifteen years' interruption of all intercourse between

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