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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 dealings 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 grave 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 recall to our remembrance that gracious and consolatory declaration of our blessed Saviour, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." +

* Job v. 25.

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↑ John xiii. 7.

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 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 which enabled him still to say, Blessed be the name of the Lord." †

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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, * 1 Tim. vi. 9, 10, ↑ Job i. 21.

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 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 involved. 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.'

"Should our faith, too feeble at the best," she would con# Rev. iii. 19.

tinue, 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 the suffering and patient Job. "What are my sorrows," he would say, "compared with his, on whom all the vials of Satan's malignant wrath were, by the permissive, mysterious providence of God, poured out in agonizing fury? Though my property is lost to me, yet is my wife, my child, my health, my strength, wonderfully preserved; while the utterly bereaved patriarch was doomed to the destruction of all-sons and daughters, houses and lands, flocks and herds, health of body, and peace of mind-all swept away in one overwhelming desolation. Nay, more than this," he would say,—while regarding his wife with the tenderest affection,-"I am blessed with the consolations of one who is, indeed, a helpmate to me in all my trials and adversities; instead of having, like Job, to wring out from the cup of trembling' that bitterest drop-an infidel and blaspheming wife!"

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To proceed, however, with the narrative, I must inform my reader, that the affairs of the worthy Mr. Gracelove were, at length, brought to a more satisfactory settlement than had been at first anticipated. Every creditor of the house was paid his demands in full, without diminution or compromise; even to Ibid. verse 32. C

*Rom. viii. 28.

the extent of those debts which were not legal obligations, but which the conscience of this honest merchant told him were equally claims of justice in the sight of Him who judges all things, although incapable of being enforced in a court of law.

The wreck of his fortune, thus honestly distributed, still left a subsistence, though scanty, to Mr. Gracelove and his family; kindly assisted as he was by the frank and generous exertions in his behalf, of those friends whom admiration of his strict integrity had called round him in his hour of need.

His affairs being at length finally arranged, to the entire and grateful satisfaction of all his commercial friends and creditors, he was on the point of again commencing his mercantile pursuits, when, by the death of a maternal uncle, he unexpectedly found himself in possession of a valuable and beautiful estate in the county of Cumberland. The property consisted of four hundred acres of land in the lovely and fertile vale of the Derwent; to which was attached the villa already described, and which had formed the abode of the deceased bachelor.

This providential turn of prosperity now changed altogether the proposed plan of renewed commercial engagements; and having a taste for rural occupations, and some knowledge of farming, Mr. Gracelove at once determined to devote his future life to the cultivation and improvement of his estate. Shortly afterwards, therefore, he removed, with his family, to the peaceful retirement to which my reader has been so recently introduced.

Having thus afforded an insight into the earlier life of the master of the household, impartial justice requires that we should indulge in a brief retrospection of the former life of its amiable mistress. The memorial of her is short and simple. She was one of a family of twelve children, whom

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