Mrs. Smith
With this very excellent woman I had a long and intimate acquaintance. My youngest daughter, of whom I was bereaved in the bloom of her youth, was named Statira after her. During many of my annual visits to Surrey Chapel, I spent with my wife much of the time I could spare from my services ia London at her house at Woodford. Her name was then Pool, and her husband was a merchant, and had been prosperous, and was rich. She was a woman of a superior understanding, and had a cultivated mind. She had lived in the levities and gaieties of genteel commercial society, (generally the most vain, profane, and vapid,) and so she knew enough of the ways and friendships of the world, to be, in a measure, weaned from them; or at least to be fully convinced of their vanity and vexation of spirit; while she felt her need of something better than earth could offer, without knowing what it was, or where it could be obtained.
With these views and feelings she came with her husband to Bath; and as they were acquainted with Mr. H. Thornton, M.P. for the borough, she inquired of him where he would recommend them to attend. He answered, “You know I am a Churchman, but there are persons who may be occasionally heard to advantage out of the Establishment.” He knew what was then the state of Bath, and he also perceived the state of her mind. What he said induced her to visit Argyle Chapel; and the first sermon she heard the Reminiscent preach, brought her in sight of the relief and satisfaction she had ignorantly, but really been seeking after. She now made herself known, and a mutual and growing friendship ensued.
Upon her returning home to Woodford, her lamentation was that she could not hear the truth which had made her free indeed. But one of her servants rather casually heard the Rev. George CoUison of Walthamstow, and eagerly informed her* mistress, that she had found a minister who preached just like the minister they had heard at Bath. She forthwith the next sabbath ordered out her carriage, and went to hear him herself. She much relished the preaching of this man of God; and from thenceforth made it the place of her constant attendance.
From the commencement of her religious career, she had morning and evening prayer, with the female domestics of her household; but her husband was not as yet favourable to the establishment of family worship. But when is a woman, whose heart is right with God, at a loss to carry a good point, for want of motives, methods, or means?
Some months after, Mr. Thornton and the Reminiscent were to spend a week together as their guests. So she said to her husband, “These friends who are coming, always have the worship of God in their families; and they will expect it here, and will think it very strange, if they should not find it.’’ He replied, “Well, then, we must conform to their custom while they are here.’’ So I was desired to conduct the service every morning and evening, reading the Scriptures, now and then dropping a very few words, and always praying short and as wisely as I could. But no sooner had we departed than the good wife said to her husband,” Will it not appear very odd to the servants, if we now give up this exercise? Will they not think that we have been endeavouring to appear to our friends more religious than we really are? And do you not think the performance itself is likely to do good, if not to ourselves, yet to our domestics?’^ So the practice was allowed to be continued, on the condition of her officiating. This she was qualified to do; but she took it up, not by choice, but as a trial, and from a sense of duty, arising from a peculiar condition of things. She always had a form of prayer before her, but she occasionally interspersed some expressions of her own. And would not this be the best way of using forms of ’ devotion? I once heard Mr. John Shepherd of Frome, recommending it from his own example and experience.
Are Christians ever useless? When blessed themselves they prove blessings to others; and in various degrees, in some way or other, serve their generation by the will of God. Who can tell the good this woman accomplished in her own place and neighbourhood by her example and influence, in visiting the rich; feeding and clothing the hungry and the naked; instructing the ignorant; establishing schools; and forming a club for the poor females to aid them in their illnesses and lyings-in, whose meetings she accompanied with moral and religious addresses, without however excluding their little homely and innocent festivities?
When she was bereaved of her husband, as her means remained, the widow equalled, sustained and carried on what the wife had begun and established.
Some years after she married again. It was to a veiy accomplished gentleman, a serjeant-at-law, a fellow of the Antiquarian Society, a scholar, and the father of the authors of the “Rejected Addresses,”” Horace in London,^’ and various celebrated novels.* At first his doctrinal sentiments widely differed from her own. This created great difficulty on her side; and for some time a refusal of marriage was the result. At length some peculiar circumstances led her to yield, though not perfectly in
* I once dined with these gifted young men; and was sorry to remark that, if religion was not the object of their contempt, it was not “the one thing needful.” accordance with her convictions. But God overruled it for good, in more evangelizing his sentiments, and bringing some of his daughters into the way of life. Yet the connexion was not without its trials. It occasioned the loss of a large part of her property. But herein again her gracious principle continued to operate and show itself. Though she much reduced her establishment, she resolved that her charities, sacred and civil, should not suffer. These continued the same. In what are not the subjects of divine grace a peculiar people? Trying events befall them, and evince that they are not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of the mind; and so proving “what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect vrill of God.”
It is pleasing to know that her husband, whom she had once characterized in a letter to the Reminiscent, as “having all the wisdom of the Greeks, and their foolishness too,” — after a while received the Kingdom of God as a little child, died in the faith of the Gospel, a member of the Independent Church at Wandsworth, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. “Not many wise men after the flesh are called;” but there have always been a few to falsify the prejudice, that the religion of the cross is fit only for the vulgar and illiterate.