proving that we are so." On the whole, this welljudged circumstance saved him a great deal of future trouble. When his former acquaintance observed that he was still conversable and innocently cheerful, and that he was immovable in his resolutions, they desisted from further importunity. And he has assured me, that instead of losing any one valuable friend by this change in his character, he found himself much more esteemed and regarded by many who could not persuade themselves to imitate his example. I have not any memoirs of colonel Gardiner's life, or of any other remarkable event befalling him in it, from the time of his return to England till his marriage, in the year 1726; except the extracts which have been sent me from some letters which he wrote to his religious friends during this interval, and which I cannot pass by without a more particular notice. It may be recollected, that in consequence of the reduction of that regiment of which he was major, he was out of commission from November the 10th, 1718, till June the 1st, 1724: and after he returned from Paris I find all his letters, during this period, dated from London, where he continued, in communion with the Christian society under the pastoral care of Doctor Calamy. As his good mother also belonged to the same, it is easy to imagine it must have been an unspeakable pleasure to her to have such frequent opportunities of conversing with such a son, of observing in his daily conduct and discourse the blessed effects of that change which Divine grace had made in his heart, and of partaking with him monthly of that sacred feast where Christians so frequently enjoy the divinest entertainments which they expect on this side heaven. I the rather mention this ordinance, because, as this excellent lady had a very high esteem

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for it, so she had an opportunity of attending it but the very Lord's day immediately preceding her death, which happened on Thursday, October 7th, 1725, after her son had been removed from her almost a year. He had maintained her handsomely out of that very moderate income on which he subsisted since his regiment had been disbanded; and when she expressed her gratitude to him for it, he assured her, I think, in one of the last letters she ever received from him, "that he esteemed it a great honour that God put it into his power to make," what he called, "a very small acknowledgment of all her care for him, and especially of the many prayers she had offered on his account, which had already been remarkably answered, and the benefit of which he hoped ever to enjoy."

I apprehend that the earl of Stair's regiment, to the majority of which he was promoted on the 20th of July, 1724, was then quartered in Scotland; for all the letters in my hand, from that time to the 6th of February, 1726, are dated from thence, and particularly from Douglas, Stranrawer, Hamilton, and Ayr: but I have the pleasure to find, from comparing these with others of an earlier date from London and the neighbouring parts, that neither the detriment which he must suffer by being so long out of commission, nor the hurry of affairs while charged with it, could prevent or interrupt that intercourse with Heaven which was his daily feast and his daily strength.

These were most eminently the happy years of his life; for he had learned to estimate his happiness, not by the increase of honour, or the possession of wealth, or by what was much dearer to his generous heart than either, the converse of the dearest and worthiest human friends; but by nearness to God, and by opportunities of humble converse with him, in the

lively exercise of contemplation, praise, and prayer. Now there was no period of his life in which he was more eminently favoured with these; nor do I find any of his letters so overflowing with transports of holy joy as those which were dated during this time. There are indeed in some of them such very sublime passages, that I have been dubious whether I should communicate them to the public or not, lest I should administer matter of profane ridicule to some, who look upon all the elevations of devotion as a contemptible enthusiasm. And it has also given me some apprehensions, lest it should discourage some pious Christians, who, after having spent several years in the service of God, and in humble obedience to the precepts of his gospel, may not have attained to any such heights as these. But on the whole, I cannot satisfy myself to suppress them; not only as I number some of them, considered in a devotional view, among the most extraordinary pieces of the kind I have ever met with: but as some of the most excellent and judicious persons I anywhere know, to whom I have read them, have assured me, that they felt their hearts in an unusual manner impressed, quickened, and edified by them.

I will therefore draw back the veil, and show my much-honoured friend in his most secret recesses; that the world may see what those springs were, from whence issued that clear, permanent, and living stream of wisdom, piety, and virtue, which so apparently ran through all that part of his life which was open to public observation. It is not to be imagined that letters written in the intimacy of Christian friendship, some of them with the most apparent marks of haste, and amidst a variety of important public cares, should be adorned with any studied

elegance of expression, about which the greatness of his soul would not allow him to be at any time very solicitous; for he generally, so far as I could observe, wrote as fast as his pen could move, which happily, both for him and his many friends, was very freely. Yet here the grandeur of his subject has sometimes clothed his ideas with a language more elevated than is ordinarily to be expected in an epistolary correspondence. The proud scorners who may deride sentiments and enjoyments like those which this truly great man so experimentally and pathetically describes, I pity from my heart; and grieve to think how unfit they must be for the hallelujahs of heaven, who pour contempt upon the nearest approaches to them : : nor shall I think it any misfortune to share with so excellent a person in their profane derision. It will be infinitely more than an equivalent for all that such ignorance and petulancy can think and say, if I may convince some who are as yet strangers to religion, how real and how noble its delights are; if I may engage my pious readers to glorify God for so illustrious an instance of his grace; and finally, if I may quicken them, and above all may rouse my own too indulgent spirit, to follow with less unequal steps an example, to the sublimity of which I fear few of us shall after all be able fully to attain. And that we may not be too much discouraged under the deficiency, let it be recollected, that few have the advantage of a temper naturally so warm; few have an equal command of retirement; and perhaps hardly any one, who thinks himself most indebted to the riches and freedom of Divine grace, can trace interpositions of it in all respects equally astonishing.

The first of these extraordinary letters which have fallen into my hand is dated nearly three years after

his conversion, and addressed to a lady of quality. I believe it is the first the major ever wrote so immediately on the subject of his religious consolations and converse with God in devout retirement. For I well remember that he once told me he was so much afraid that something of spiritual pride should mingle itself with the relation of such kind of experiences, that he concealed them a long time; but observing with how much freedom the sacred writers open all the most secret recesses of their hearts, especially in the Psalms, his conscience began to be burdened, under an apprehension that, for the honour of God, and in order to engage the concurrent praises of some of his people, he ought to disclose them. On this he set himself to reflect who, among all his numerous acquaintance, seemed at once the most experienced Christian he knew, to whom therefore such things as he had to communicate might appear solid and credible, and who the humblest. He quickly thought of the lady marchioness of Douglas in this view: and the reader may well imagine, that it struck my mind very strongly, to think that now, more than twenty-four years after it was written, Providence should bring to my hand, as it has done within these few days, what I assuredly believe to be a genuine copy of that very letter, which I had not the least reason to expect I should ever have seen, when I learned from his own mouth, amidst the freedom of an accidental conversation, the occasion and circumstances of it.

It is dated from London, July 21, 1722, and the very first lines of it relate to a remarkable circumstance, which from others of his letters I find to have happened several times. I mean, that when he had received from any of his Christian friends a few lines which particularly affected his heart, he could not stay