ness for that great honour and privilege; and renew the dedication of yourself to God every day, and labour to approve every action and every thought to him. I hope, my dear, your determinate and established piety will be a blessing to the younger children of the family, and a joy to us to the latest day of our lives. May you see many of these days, and may they be days of growing comfort and usefulness: forgive me, if I say, may you see many of them with us, or near us, for truly I long to have you near us again; and have found your absence the only part of the price of your education which I have thought dear. I rejoice to think I am likely, if Providence spare our lives (yet how precarious are they) to see you, and my other much-beloved child, so soon. Yet, to a papa that loves you so well, even these few weeks will seem long; you must, therefore, on receiving this letter, indulge me in the pleasure of a line: and write me your heart, and I will not stand with you for the elegance of the hand. Above all, pray for us every day. Your sisters and your brother are well: he grows a fine scholar, and will, I hope, be worthy to be called the brother of so amiable a girl.

I wish I could convey any little present to you on the agreeable occasion of my writing to-day; but take our love, and our blessing, and any thing else will follow as we have opportunity. Farewell, my dear child, and believe that I shall think myself happy in any occasion of showing you how much I am

Your affectionate Papa,

To Miss Doddridge, at Mrs. Linton's, in the Fore Gate Street, Worcester.

P. DODDRIDge.

VOL. V.

F

DEAR SIR,

FROM W. OLIVER, M. D.

Bath May 12, 1748.

I THINK your "Life of Colonel Gardiner" is written with a most lively spirit of religion and friendship, and contains many excellent things; which I doubt not will prove useful, as you designed them. As to the extraordinary impressions and particular interpositions, I am not very clear what to believe about them. They must be admitted to be possible, but I do not find that we are encouraged by Scripture to hope for them: the written word, and the secret operations of the Holy Spirit being, I suppose, sufficient for us. Nay, are we not assured that such particular interpositions would be fruitless, when we are told, that if the writings of Moses and the Prophets could not convince us of the evil of our ways, neither should we believe though we were admonished by one who rose from the dead! The spirit of man, assisted by a lively imagination and warm passions, is capable, we know, of working strong delusions in the mind, even to the hearing of voices never uttered, and seeing visions without real objects. In such cases it is very difficult to distinguish whether the overheated imagination of the man, or the particular operation of the Holy Spirit has most to do: the first is generally to be suspected, because we find it common, the last seldom to be admitted for want of sufficient evidence. If we differ in our sentiments on this subject, I know your charity will bear with me.

I hope your family enjoys good health, and then I am sure you want nothing to make you as happy as this state permits. Your vacation, as well as ours, is now approaching; I wish you may have thoughts of directing your summer tour this I should think myself very happy

way.

in enjoying your conversation, with good Mrs. Doddridge's, if but for a week; and no light matter could prevail with me to lose it, by being from home at such a time.

I am, with true esteem, Sir,

Your most obliged and most obedient Servant,

MY DEAR GIRL,

TO MISS DODDRIDGE.

W. OLIVER.

Northampton, June 4, 1748.

You may easily imagine that I was very much charmed with your wise and obliging letter of May 28; and yet, to say the truth, I paid pretty dear for the pleasure it gave me, for never did I long so much to see any of my children; and I am the more sensibly touched with the disappointment of the hope I had entertained, as I am very much afraid I shall be obliged to set out for my London journey about the time of my dear girl's return. But the satisfaction of heart which it gives me to see how rightly you judge of things, and how cheerfully you acquiesce in our desires, for we did not here pretend to exert our commands, is something superior to the fondest delight an interview with you, amiable as you are in my eyes, could have given me. It shows how much you are mistress of yourself, and that is a great happiness and a great honour.

May the favour and love of the most indulgent Providence ever surround you. I hold you so dear that I feel a daily solicitude on your account, and find, to a strange degree of sensibility, that love sometimes makes me a coward where your health and safety are concerned: but I comfort myself with thinking that the peculiar blessings promised to dutiful and pious children will assuredly attend you, and so that your days will be long and your comforts

many. But if it were otherwise ordered by Providence as to this mortal life, I hope and believe my dear child has chosen her portion above, and will infallibly find it there. May that blessed hope grow every day stronger in both our bosoms, and may we feel its efficacy to purify our hearts, and cause them to overflow with love to our heavenly Father and our Saviour. And I cannot forbear adding, Oh, that I may ever be as willing to be disposed of by infinite Wisdom and Goodness as my dear child is to acquiesce in what I, whom she has too little reason to call her wise and good, though I am assuredly her affectionate рара, think proper for my daughter! In this instance my good girl may, at least, be sure it is for her advantage that I deny myself, for truly a month under so religious, prudent, and kind a governess is always valuable, and the last month, probably most of all so, as the value of it is so much the better known.

Your obligations to my worthy friend Mr. Stokes are beyond all our acknowledgements, but I know you will either say or write something to him which shall testify the real sense you have of them. But whither am I running; I sat down only to ease my heart with writing you a line, and I am got to the third page. Indeed I think I could spend half the day in thus chatting to you, and not think it long. But the duties of life call me to draw towards a close. Farewell, my dearest girl, I know not how to express the tenderness with which I pour out my soul to God for you better than in the words in which he taught his priests, such was his infinite condescension, to bless his people; "The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious to thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace;" that peace which passeth all understanding, that great peace which they have who love his law, and only they: in one word, the peace which Christ calls his own, "my peace I give unto you."

Your dear mamma is much as usual. Your brother who has made very great improvements in his learning, and your sisters are well. They join with your many friends here in the kindest salutations to you and dear Miss Ekins. Your most affectionate Papa,

P. DODDRIDGE.

DEAR SIR,

TO HENRY BAKER, ESQ. F. RS.

Northampton, July 2, 1748. THE Occasion of my writing to you now is to inform you of a remarkable fact, which I have just heard from a member of the church of which I am pastor, and in whom I can entirely confide.

He tells me that he has in Upper Heyford Field, about four miles from this town, a wether sheep which now suckles a lamb. I know not by what accident the lamb sometime since ran after it and fixed upon its paps, drawing hard, milk followed. The lamb has subsisted very well upon what it sucked, and at the late shearing time he himself pressed the teats and milk came out in a considerable quantity.

This reminds me of what Mr. Ray tells us, from Bocconi, that a countryman in Umbria nourished his child by milk from his own breast, and Florentinus and Malpighius are quoted on the same occasion. Bartholinus, in his Anatomy, p. 215, has some remarkable passages to this purpose: he quotes a passage in Aristotle concerning a he goat, in Lemnos, which had a great quantity of milk.

I shall add to this a short account of a monstrous lamb, which was weaned in a field near Newport Pagnel, about the middle of last March, and was brought to me soon after it died. It had two perfect heads, and two long necks,