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can remove them; as after an experience of thirteen years' misery I can abundantly testify.” This was written in the year 1787, and yet, in the midst of that misery he could look back, past those thirteen years, to a period of light and happiness, so radiant, so sweet, so serene, so heavenly, and so long-continued, that he would sometimes say, in reference to God's mercy in those comforts, and the certainty and celestial reality of them, that he could not be so duped, even by the arch-enemy himself, as to be made to question the divine nature of them. And with what affecting tenderness, when he left Olney, that scene of so much bliss and so much wretchedness, does he record his feelings! "I recollected that I had once been happy there, and could not, without tears in mine eyes, bid adieu · to a place in which God had so often found me. The human mind is a great mystery; mine, at least, appeared to me to be such upon this occasion. I found that I had not only had a tenderness for that ruinous abode, because it had once known me happy in the presence of God; but that even the distress I had suffered for so long a time on account of His absence, had endeared it to me as much." Surely this is a most striking proof of the depth of Cowper's piety as well as the darkness and severity of his gloom.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SICKNESS, CONVERSION, AND DEATH OF COWPER'S BROTHER -COWPER'S SURPRISE AND JOY AT SUCH A MANIFESTATION OF GRACE.

LET us now return to the record of his life when it was passing so sweetly in a retirement filled with sacred duties and enjoyments. The first event that interrupted its quiet and happy course, was the death of his dear brother at Cambridge, in 1770. But that sickness and departure were attended by a manifestation of God's grace so remarkable, so clear, so triumphant, that the affliction was quite disarmed of its sting, and passed in the experience of Cowper rather as a bright angel of mercy than a cloud of trial and distress. From the first moment of Cowper's own conversion, he had not ceased to interest himself with affectionate earnestness in behalf of the soul of his brother, whose views then were any thing but evangelical, and who, though a man of strict morality, high intellectual accomplishments, refined taste, a most amiable temper, and a minister of the Church of

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England, was yet one among the many who counted the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit as a fanatical delusion. When Newton afterward published Cowper's deeply interesting and most instructive narrative of the conversion and death of his beloved brother, it was prefaced with some notice of that prevalent skepticism, under the power and fashion of which, an avowed attachment to the doctrines of the Gospel was regarded as a fit subject for ridicule. "The very name of vital, experimental religion," said Newton, "excites contempt and scorn, and provokes resentment. The doctrines of regeneration by the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity of His continual agency and influence to advance the holiness and comfort of those, in whose hearts he has already begun a work of grace, are not only exploded and contradicted by many who profess a regard for the Bible, and by some who have subscribed to the articles and liturgy of our established church, but they who avow an attachment to them are, upon that account, and that account only, considered as hypocrites or visionaries, knaves or fools."

Cowper's memoir of his brother was the record of an instance of divine grace inferior, if at all, only to the wondrous interposition of mercy in his own For several years Cowper's conversations with his brother seemed to have little effect, and

case.

COWPER'S BROTHER.

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his narrative of his own cure by the grace of Christ, which he gave him to peruse, seemed to be regarded by him rather as a proof and result of his madness. But when his illness came, Cowper frequently conversed and prayed with him, and at length he had the unspeakable happiness to find that though so long blinded by prejudice, yet now he began to see, and speedily indeed, became like a little child, and in the reception and belief of those same truths which he had before rejected, he was so filled with happiness and peace, that Cowper's own surprise and joy were almost greater than he could bear. On the borders of the river of death they had communion on the themes of heaven, delightful, satisfactory, ecstatic; and the dear object of Cowper's love, anxiety, and faith, passed serenely and happily away in humble faith and prayer.

Before he died, he told Cowper that he thought his own redemption from the power of sin and deliverance from blindness was still more wonderful than his; for his prejudices were fast confirmed and riveted against the truth, and he had all his life been a companion with those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised the doctrines of the Cross. Such was his clergyman in his early days; such were his schoolmaster and instructors; such the most admired characters of the university; and such was he, in the parish over which he was the minister. He told Cowper

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OF

that he was just beginning to be a deist, and had long desired to be so; and he owned, what he never confessed before, that his office, and the duties of it, were a wearisomeness to him which he could not bear. "Yet," said he, "wretched creature and beast that I was, I was esteemed religious though I lived without God in the world."

"Brother, if I live," said he to Cowper," you and I shall be more like one another than we have been. But whether I live or live not, all is well, and shall be so; I know it will; I have felt that which I never felt before; and am sure that God has visited me with this sickness to teach me what I was too proud to learn in health. I never had satisfaction till now. The doctrines I had been used to, referred me to myself for the foundation of my hopes, and there I could find nothing to rest upon. The sheet-anchor of the soul was wanting. I thought you wrong, yet wished to believe as you did. You suffered more than I have done before you believed these truths; but our sufferings, though different in their kind and measure, were directed to the same end. I hope God has taught me that which He teaches none but His own. I hope so. These things were foolishness to me once, but now I have a firm foundation, and am satisfied."

Cowper's memoir of the wondrous change in his brother, and of the great mercy of God in his sickness and death, is so simple, so impressive and