prayerless parents, and would have entailed a curse upon souls unborn, by extending the baleful influence over the succeeding generations. But a mournful event was permitted to alter the probable current of their affairs. Mr. Sharpe, with the intention of bringing his family home to England for education, went on board a ship lying in the harbour of Grenada, to examine her accommodations; when he was attacked by an infectious fever which had raged in the vessel, and in a very few days died, leaving his disconsolate widow and five children to pursue alone their voyage to this country. On their arrival in England they were affectionately received and cherished by Mrs. Sharpe's own father, at Tempsford-Hall, in the vicinity of which the following circumstance had previously occurred.

In the village of Tempsford, resided a general Baptist, who was one of the Baronet's tenants, and who was accustomed (such was the fervour of his religious feeling) to travel twenty miles on the Lord's Day to join in divine worship with a congregation of his own Communion. On one occasion, in conversation with a Christian friend, this pious Baptist observed, that since he had been in Bedfordshire God had so greatly blessed him, that he knew not what grateful return to make for His goodness to him. His friend, in reply, said, "Go home, and take the Methodist Preachers into your house." He immediately rejoined, "By the help of God I will:" and on his return home, he embraced an early opportunity of inviting them to make his home their occasional abode, for the purpose of introducing preaching into the village. The same overruling Providence influenced the heart of Sir Gillies Payne to give his consent, that one of his cottages should be used as their new place of worship. And the hand of the Lord being with them, the Methodist preaching was rendered instrumental of gathering together a small congregation of the villagers, a few of whom, under serious impressions, were formed into a Society; and having received the truth in the love thereof, were brought by happy experience to prove the Gospel of Christ to be the power of God unto salvation.

Though Sir Gillies Payne did not range himself among those who make an especial profession of religion, yet he was a decided and public friend to religious liberty, almost to latitudinarianism, and truly respected the Christian profession in others, when accompanied by a holy and consistent life and temper. It is supposed that one of the principal reasons inducing him thus to sanction and forward the introduction of our Preachers into the village of Tempsford was, the conduct of his coachman; who, by divine grace, had honourably sustained a Christian character in the eyes of his master for many years; and by whom, as an expression of his good opinion, he was placed, after so respectable a servitude, in a small farm belonging to the family. As the preachingcottage did not form a part of his farm, the good man applied to his

landlord to have it so attached, for the purpose of giving a character of greater permanency to their religious services; but the venerable Baronet gave him his promise that they should never experience any molestation in their possession of the house for that pious purpose; and his word gave the friends all the security of a lease.

The few who enjoyed the advantages of worshipping God in the cottage, were doubtless strongly attached to their estimable landlord; to whose tolerant and liberal principles, under the divine blessing, they were indebted for access to those means of life and salvation. But it was probably much more than they ever expected, that the saving influence of the truth they felt would extend from the cottage to the hall, or that any of the members of the Baronet's family should be associated with them as fellow-worshippers. Yet it is well often for us to be reminded that the ways of God are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts. It was to a company of comparatively poor but pious individuals, who for some time afterwards were in the habit of conducting their worship in an upper room, that the Son of God once said, "Ye are the light of the world!" Where there is a decided consistency of character in those who worship God, how humble soever their outward condition, they may possibly become the objects of observation, as well as the medium of usefulness to an extent far beyond their own hopes and expectations. This was the case with the praying villagers of Tempsford.

Some time after the death of Sir Gillies Payne, Mrs. Sharpe and another lady were passing the cottage; and being attracted by the singing, at the suggestion of her friend, she accompanied her from a motive of curiosity, and went in to see what was doing. It was a prayermeeting; and as the person engaged offered a petition especially for their honourable visitors, Mrs. Sharpe was much interested in their proceeding, and gratified with such a mark of attention from them, though she did not feel that she needed any thing, and could hardly refrain from wondering that they should have prayed for her, considering religion as chiefly necessary for the poor and the uncultivated. But her sentiments soon experienced a change; for while another of these humble and devout Christians was engaged in fervent prayer to God, Mrs. Sharpe was led to discover that they were animated by a spirit of fervent piety, to which she was herself a total stranger. The importance of possessing such a pious concern, to be approved of God, impressed her as it had never done before. She saw and felt it desir~ able, above all things, to pursue with becoming solicitude this chief end of mortal existence. Under the immediate workings of the Holy Spirit, her conscience, awaking from its slumbers, pronounced a verdict of condemnation against her for her long-continued negligence of God, and of her soul. She was deeply smitten to the heart with the fearful apprehension of the sentence of a higher tribunal; and from a painful sense

of her lost state as a sinner, she never rested, from that time, until, by a penitent faith in the atoning blood of Christ, she received the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins, through the tender mercy of our God.

It was natural that Mrs. Sharpe should repeat her visit to the place, however uninviting its exterior appearance, in which her mind had undergone so mighty an alteration, and where she had become the subject of impressions evincing their heavenly origin by their heavenly tendency. And this was her justification for what by some of her family was viewed as an indecorum. They thought of the preaching-cottage, not only with the same contempt which she herself had formerly felt, but also with warm displeasure. No opprobrium was in their estimation too great to mark the place in which they considered their relative had so grossly degraded herself and them, by worshipping God with those who were so greatly her inferiors. But it had been one tendency of genuine repentance in its effects on a spirit naturally haughty and imperious, to relax the energies of the native pride, and to reverse the feeling of selfexaltation. She could cordially adopt the language of the Apostle Paul, "I am less than the least of all saints." And so often had her soul been blessed beneath the lowly roof where they were accustomed to assemble, that she could speak of it as the Patriarch Jacob did of his less commodious praying-place at Bethel: "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

Mrs. Sharpe, being of a decided and independent constitution of mind, was not so much exposed, at the commencement of her religious life, as some have been, to a timid and temporising policy. And though her decision caused her to suffer under some forms of persecution from a few of her family and social circles, yet she was, by divine grace, enabled to remain steadfast and unmoveable. At that time, she had been bereaved of her benevolent and affectionate father, and was living in the vicinity of her brother, Sir John Payne, who had succeeded to the title and estates. She could not have forgotten that she was a widow, with a rising family, whose interests it devolved on herself to guard and promote. But no temporal consideration was allowed to outweigh, in the scale of importance, the momentous concerns of the soul, and of the eternal world. Nor was she so far left to the resources of a fallen nature, as to be suffered, by a regard to human favour, to receive the grace of God in vain. That was indeed a memorable era in the family history. It is not improbable that in that one incident the eternal well-being of many will hereafter be found to have been involved. And there are individuals now in heaven, (of whom it is not to be doubted that our valued friend, the late Mrs. Calder, is one,) who for that single event will ascribe unceasing praise and glory to God and the Lamb.

In her subsequent intercourse with the religious cottagers, amongst

whom she had found the pearl of great price, Mrs. Sharpe needed, on the one hand, much Christian prudence, not by a careless degree of familiarity needlessly to shock the feelings of her own family and friends; and on the other, the cultivation of a temper of conscientious fidelity to God, not to be ashamed of the humble instrumentality He had been pleased to sanction to her soul's salvation. By simply looking for divine direction, ever fearful of leaning to our own understanding, we may at all times be enabled to discover the happy medium, even when surrounded by the most perplexing difficulties. And young Christians should ever in this way seek to be preserved from extremes; as well from a due regard to the honour of religion, as to their own comfort, and the eternal benefit of their immediate connexions; to whom it is in the order of God that every converted person should prove, not a candle put under a bushel, but one set in a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. It is truly lamentable to see persons with the best intentions, obscuring the light of which they have been made partakers, and casting away all probability of acquiring a useful influence over their unconverted friends, by an impetuous and untempered disregard of the way of duty in this respect.

Individuals in subordinate life, can in general form but an imperfect idea of the difficulties which attend a religious profession on the part of those who are found in a higher situation than themselves. There is a happy medium also for them to learn; and which they should conscientiously observe, in point of demeanour towards such persons. By the small Society in Tempsford, Mrs. Sharpe was ever approached with a modest respect. In their humble dwellings, to which she was accustomed to pay short visits, as a learner in the school of Christ, she always met with an affectionate welcome, and acquired the knowledge of many a useful lesson. Nor did she entirely omit opportunities of rendering herself helpful to those of them with whose unobtruding temporal necessities she thus became acquainted. How delightful thus to behold the rich and the poor meet together, under the smile, and in prosecution of the great and universal plan, of the Lord who is the Maker of them all! Her visits to the house of the good man already mentioned, as having so honourably served her father in the capacity of coachman, were rendered peculiarly profitable to her; and it was of course, to him and his family, a gratifying circumstance to observe the devout decision of her heart, and to endeavour to expound to her the way of God more perfectly.

In her religious commencement, Mrs. Sharpe experienced candour and liberality from her brother Sir John Payne. A certain Nobleman (whose name Christian feeling prevents us from exhibiting to its merited odium) advised the Baronet to put away the farmer whom they had discovered to have been conversing with his sister on the subject of religion; but

instead of following the ungenerous advice, he kindly accommodated her and another sister with the use of his carriage to attend a Love-Feast at St. Neot's; which ordinance was rendered an essential service to her. By a gentleman more noble, who became acquainted with that act of his brotherly-kindness, the Baronet was afterwards very warmly commended: the individual, though not himself a decidedly serious man, expressing his opinion that on so solemn a subject as religion, every person ought to be left at the most entire liberty to choose and decide for himself. About the same time, Mrs. Sharpe and her sister were much encouraged by the occasional conversation of the celebrated Dr. Haweis, of Aldwinkle, who had married Miss Norton, a niece of Sir Gillies Payne, and who in his visits at Tempsford, was accustomed to speak to them on divine subjects.

From that period Mrs. Sharpe was intent on promoting the salvation of her children. With a vigour of mind, and sincerity of conviction, which raised her above every fastidious feeling, she regularly conducted them to attend the ministry of the Gospel in the cottage; and by those means she continued herself to receive those religious aids which added stability to her Christian character, and enabled her to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Among the first-fruits of her parental endeavours was the manifestation of a serious disposition on the part of her eldest daughter. This concern, which was evinced at a very tender age, terminated, by the grace of God, in a sound conversion, and great fixedness of character.

When her mother was first brought under the influence of the fear of God, Miss Sharpe was at school in London; but as soon as the information reached her, she was so affected by it, that she instantly resolved to follow the same blessed course. Without any hesitation, she determined to renounce the fashionable evils of dancing, and the amusements of the theatre; and when invited to dance on the following Sabbath-day, uncountenanced as she was by any religious companion, she absolutely refused. This promptness and determination of mind, seemed to be in her case in some degree a constitutional endowment of the God of nature. It was by his grace she was prevented from disregarding and neglecting to improve this talent, so important and so truly ennobling to the character; and the due improvement of it through life resulted in immense advantages to herself, as well as to all on whom her example obtained any salutary influence.

On her return to her mother's home, soon after the circumstance above related, she accompanied the younger children to the preaching in the cottage; where she always listened to the truth with the utmost candour and seriousness; and was truly conscientious and attentive to the observance of religion. Yet it was not until some time afterward, that she was brought to an experience of the power of godliness upon her soul. It was a gratifying permission of Divine Providence, that the valuable