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Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name;
I am all unrighteousness;
False and full of sin I am;
Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin:
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee :

Spring thou up within my heart!
Rise to all eternity!

Having performed this interesting act of worship, each person knelt down; while Mr. Gracelove put up an extempore prayer, full of that warm and tender piety which the previous service was so well calculated to produce; on the conclusion of which the family shortly afterwards retired to rest.

CHAPTER II.

HAVING, in the foregoing chapter, introduced my reader to the worthy proprietors of Derwent Cottage, under an aspect the most interesting that domestic life can exhibit, I proceed to fill up the sketch with a few personal notices on the various members of the family who were present at the edifying scene so recently described; as well as to record some traits of individual character with regard to the earlier lives of Mr. and Mrs. Gracelove.

The father of Mr. Gracelove had been, during his life, a successful and conscientious merchant in a large manufacturing town, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Regulated in all his commercial deal. ings with mankind by the christian principle that "honesty is the best policy," he had acquired both respectability and fortune; and on his death left to his only son, the subject of the present memoir, a flourishing business, and the still better patrimony of a good name; he himself having come to his in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season." "'*

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The dispensations, however, of a righteous Providence are often mysterious, though no doubt intended for the trial of our faith; and forcibly recal to our remembrance that gracious and consolatory declara

* Job v. 26.

tion of our blessed Saviour, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." *

The allusion has respect to the severe reverses with which it pleased God to visit the prosperity of the son bequeathed to him by his pious father. For in the fearful panic of 18-, when so many noble fortunes were laid prostrate in the commercial world by the calamitous shock of a sudden and unexpected adversity, his affairs received a blow from which they were unable to recover. There had been, on his part, no reckless and profligate speculation, aiming at large and rapid gains, at the risk of losing all— which is, alas! so frequently the case-affording but too fatal an illustration of that warning voice of St. Paul to Timothy," They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." There had been no profuse expenditure grounded on the previous success-no relaxation of that honest perseverance which had originated and afterwards continued the prosperity of his house,-in short, there had been nothing in the management of his mercantile concerns which could superadd the bitterness of self-reproach to the ruin which had fallen upon him. And yet, all was gone! The Lord had given, and the Lord had taken away, everything except the integrity He had originally vouchsafed to his afflicted servant, and

*John xiii. 7.

1 Tim. vi. 9, 10.

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After the first emotions of grief had subsided, so natural to a human heart, however wisely regulated, on seeing its brightest sublunary hopes thus unexpectedly and deeply obscured, the religious principles in which Mr. Gracelove had been so carefully educated by his lamented parent now stood forth in prominent relief. Instead of repining at the decrees of Providence, in accordance with the waywardness of the carnal mind; instead of arraigning the wisdom and mercy of the divine government in rebellious murmurings, his conduct was marked by a holy resignation to the hand that afflicted him; knowing that chastisement and love are inseparably connected, in relation to all those whose trust is reposed in God their Saviour. For thus speaks the adorable Jehovah himself," As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent." +

While, therefore, Mr. Gracelove felt his human sorrows as a man, he endured them with the fortitude and the faith of a Christian. His grief for the loss of an ample fortune arose not from considerations of a selfish nature; from the consciousness that personal comforts and luxuries must from that moment be greatly curtailed, if not absorbed; but it was when he regarded his beloved wife, to whom he had been united but three short years, and who was then carrying in her bosom the second pledge of their faithful affections, that the tear would silently

*Job i. 21.

+ Rev. iii. 19.

glisten in his eye, and the hardly-suppressed emotions gather round his heart.

On these occasions, the sweetest sympathies of a mind highly spiritualized in the invisible things of a better world, as were those of Mrs. Gracelove, were ever ready to unite with the conjugal and parental yearnings of her attached husband. "Her faith,"

she would say, "and her firm assurances in the divine promises, were not for an instant shaken by the adverse circumstances in which their affairs were in

volved An infallible wisdom was working an intelligent and beneficent result, though they could not see, as with the eye of Providence, the end from the beginning; and from the seeming evil' would be educed a good continually increasing, from time into eternity, throughout an infinite progression.'

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"Should our faith, too feeble at the best," she would continue, ever incline us to unholy doubting or despondency, we should remember, to our unspeakable comfort, that all things work together for good to them that love God:'* and also, that' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.""†

Such sentiments as these ever found a responsive echo in the breast of her beloved husband; and whether originating at any time with himself, or emanating from the piety of his dear wife, were alike refreshing to his heart. He would solace himself, at these moments, by contrasting his own still enviable condition with the unexampled afflictions of

*Rom. viii. 28.

Ibid. verse 32.

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