CHAPTER V.

Mr Heber returned from the continent in September, 1806, having been absent a little more than a year.

In 1807 he took orders and was instituted by his brother to the family living of Hodnet in Shropshire, soon after which he returned to Oxford to take his degree; where he wrote the following letter to his friend Mr Thornton.

To John Thornton, Esq.

OXFORD, 1807.

All your letters give me pleasure; but none so much as those in which you describe your own happiness. I trust that it will be now increasing daily, and that your affection will continue as lasting as I believe it to be pure and rational. I trust, too, that amid your feelings of happiness, feelings of gratitude will always keep a place, united with a sense of your total dependence on the hand which has given so largely to you, and which may, even now, in a moment deprive you of all you value most. The

season of great prosperity is very seldom favorable to serious impressions; fortunate for us. if it were possible, when we are most sensible of the value of a beloved object, to recollect the probability of that very blessing being immediately taken away. The more pain the idea gives, the more reason we have to examine and amend our hearts, lest we impose a necessity on Divine Mercy to take away from his thoughtless children the blessing they are perverting to their own destruction. You, my friend, have often told me how uniformly happy your life has hitherto been; may it long continue so, and may your heart continue such as not to need any terrible visitation. To you I can write thus without your suspecting me of hypocrisy, or a fondness for giving lectures; thoughtless and thankless as I am myself, inattentive as my conduct is to my own welfare, I am not indifferent or careless about yours, and, indeed, we often reap advantage ourselves from talking or writing seriously to others.

Nor will this perfect recollection of your dependence, this uniting always to the idea of your most beloved object, the idea of the Giver, at all produce that cold-blooded indifference

which Pascal cants about; you will not love the creature less, but you will love the Creator more. Far from such unnatural enthusiasm, the more devotion we feel to God, the warmer I should think will be our affections to those with whom we are connected; we shall love them for God's sake as well as for their own. By this one sentiment our warmest feelings become hallowed; and even the blessings of this world may be a source of religious comfort. From the reflection that they are all His gifts, every enjoyment will receive a higher coloring, and the more happy we are,the more earnestly we shall long for an admission to that heaven where we shall see the Hand which blesses us, and really experience, what we now know but faintly, how pleasant it is to be thankful. There have been moments, I am ashamed to say how seldom, when my heart has burnt within me with the conviction which I have just described. You, I trust, have often known it, and probably in a far higher degree. You now, if ever, ought to feel it.'

In August, 1807, we find Mr Heber established in his living at Hodnet. We extract a passage from his first letter to his friend written from that place.

To John Thornton, Esq.

August 17th, 1807.

'I purposely delayed writing to you till I had had some little experience of my new situation as parish priest, and my feelings under it. With the first I have every reason to be satisfied; any feelings are, I believe, the usual ones of young men who find themselves entering into the duties of a profession in which their life is to be spent. I had no new discoveries to make in the character of my people, as I had passed the greater part of my life amongst them. They received me with the same expressions of good will as they had shown on my return to England. Of course my first sermon was numerously attended; and though tears were shed, I could not attribute them entirely to my eloquence, for some of the old servants of the family began crying before I had spoken a word. I will fairly own that the cordiality of these honest people which at first elated and pleased me exceedingly, has since been the occasion of some very serious and melancholy reflections. It is really an appalling thing to have so high expectations formed of a young man's future conduct. But even this has not so much

weight with me, as a fear that I shall not return their affection sufficiently, or preserve it in its present extent by my exertions and diligence in doing good. God knows I have every motive of affection and emulation to animate me; and have no possible excuse for a failure in my duty.'

In April, 1809, Mr Heber married Amelia, youngest daughter of the late William Davies Shipley, Dean of St Asaph. It may be here mentioned, as a proof of the value he set on the Holy Scriptures, that the first present he ever made her was a Bible. The following extract is from the first letter to Mr Thornton after his marriage.

To John Thornton, Esq.

LLANBEDR, near Ruthin, April 17, 1809. 'I write this from a little parsonage-house, which has been kindly lent to Emily and myself for the first week of our marriage. The ceremony,which we hardly expected to have taken place till today, was performed on Friday, and we came here the same evening. The situation, which is extremely beautiful, we are very much. precluded from enjoying by a deep fall of snow, which has covered all the hills.