Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

'For many years after he entered on the ministry of the gospel, he was a most useful and laborious minister, faithfully preaching the truth he had once denied. And having 66 fought the good fight, and kept the faith," he "finished his course with joy."

M.

THE REV. BASIL WOOD.

THE personal narrative of this excellent man is concise and simple. His course was mild, uniform, and settled; and he owed much of his extensive usefulness, and of the attachments and respect which attend his memory, to the very circumstance of his having been for so many years, consistent and stationary. Far the oldest clergyman, and perhaps the oldest resident in the neighbourhood: who had seen one generation die, and another grow up around him, and a third pressing forward into active life; while he remained the unshaken and venerable friend and adviser, and guardian of race after race, who found him where their fathers had left him, and beaming with the same affectionate and holy sympathies which had endeared him to those who had gone before, whose youth he had nurtured, whose man

hood he had counselled, and who had preceded him to heaven.

"He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." Of less than thirteen months, which had elapsed, from the day of her marriage to the birth of her sole earthly hope, at Richmond, Surrey, on the 5th of August, 1760, nearly seven had passed in desolate loneliness: for she had lost her beloved partner within six months after their union. But her desolation was not without far better support than the dearest earthly comforter could have afforded her; for by the divine mercy, through the spiritual counsels of affectionate friends, her affliction was the means of leading her to God; and she was thus enabled to commit herself, a widow, and her fatherless child, to Him who has invited the fatherless and widows to put their trust in Him.

It was to her maternal instructions and example under the divine blessing that her affectionate son, ever attributed it, that he had early learned to love the ways of God.

She had borne him in sorrow, she had committed his feeble infancy to the care of that fatherly providence which had been ever her support, and which he was often accustomed to say had been his also. She had nurtured him in the ways of God and the love of his Redeemer. She was spared to see him enter the sacred ministry, and become an honoured instrument of spiritual

benefit to others, as a faithful and affectionate servant of Christ; and then she departed in peace to that better world, where he has now rejoined her.

An inspired penman did not detach the name of Timothy from Lois and Eunice; and the best instruction of this narrative would be lost if it were not shown how faithful God is to his promises to those parents who make it their first endeavour to bring up their children in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord." How affecting, in after life, are the reminiscences of a sainted mother's tears, how indelible her hallowed lessons, how powerful her prayers!

Let parents, let children listen, and oh that the latter may be able to do so with devout sympathy, and the former with consolation, and both without occasion for self-reproach, to the declarations of this venerable man respecting his only parent; for he had never gazed on the countenance of a father, and had he rejected her maternal counsels there was no rude hand to curb the impetuosity of headstrong youth. But the promises of God are to the weak as well as to the strong, and the desolate mother who makes him her confidence, and would bring up her fatherless children only to his glory, adding her example to her instructions, and her prayers to her tears, may cherish a consoling confidence, that God will not forsake her nor frustrate her pious endeavours.

But then let her be, what this excellent woman

was, not a soft sentimental professor of religion, not a flippant caviller or captious controvertist about speculative theorisms; not a woman talking of godliness and living to the world, not a giddy pursuer after new doctrines, new societies, new preachers, and neglecting all that is vital, holy, and energetic in the faith and practice of a disciple of Jesus Christ; but a lovely ornament,' for so this affectionate son pictures his revered mother, "of the truth as it is in Jesus," adding, The whole of her deportment was calculated to win my early attention to religion. I saw in her what it could do; how happy, how cheerful, how humble, how holy, how lovely in life, and afterwards in death, how full of mercy and good fruits, it could render the happy possessor.

Yet with this amiable lustre of character, while no other person doubted of her eternal safety, she was full of doubts and fears herself. Yet a hope she had--a good hope through grace, which she would not give up, though she rejoiced with trembling; and when sickness and infirmity came upon her, and the mortal frame was sinking in lassitude and depression, this hope became more animated, and waxed brighter and brighter to the perfect day.

'When she believed her end to be approaching,' continues her filial biographer, 'God visited her soul with more peculiar manifestations of the light of his divine countenance, and she seemed

T

to be gradually filled with unspeakable joy as the day drew nigh which for ever terminated all her

sorrow.

'After she was unable to write, she dictated to the venerable clergyman, her pastor, her dying farewell, in which she says, 'I am dying, but not afraid; I trust I am going to my Father's house. I never was so happy in all the days of my life! I would write to tell you what my soul feels in this blessed prospect. I do not doubt of meeting you in heaven, and my dear child too.'

And she has met him, now after the lapse of nearly half a century; he has rejoined her, and who can say that in that world of knowledge and recognition, he may not even look back with love and gratitude to those maternal prayers, and hallowed instructions, which his God and Father so eminently blessed and answered.

The same evening on which she dictated the above letter, she addressed her son in language which, now that he is also removed from this earthly scene, becomes doubly emphatic. On his return from his labours at his church of St. Peters, she accosted him thus: O! I am very happy; I am going to my mansion in the skies. I shall soon be there, and I shall be glad to receive you to it! You shall come in to go out no more! If ever you have a family, tell your children they had a grandmother who feared God, and found the comfort of it on her death-bed;

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »