FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ^^y^^/i^. CtTm^i^^J ^^^>^^i>^^!^^!%g^^ .(^,V (JF ^m v ^A OCT 10 1931 ^ The V /., ^> :\ K Countess of Huntingdon And her Circle By Sarah Tytler-^ ^f.^ < 4 Author of "Modern Painters and their Paintings"; "The Old Masters and their Works"; "Musical Composers and their Works"; etc., etc. CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM NEW YORK : EATON AND MAINS Press of Isaac Pitman & Sons, Bath, England. {2300) Contents CHAPTER I PAGE The Moral and Religious State of England in the Eighteenth Century — The Oxford Revival — The Woman who was the Comrade of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield — Lady Selina Shirley Born in the Reign of Queen Anne in the Year of the Union of the English and Scotch Parliaments — The Tradition of the Early Impression made upon her by a Village Child's Funeral — The Engraving which represents her as Lady Huntingdon when well advanced in years — Her two Sisters Co-heiresses with her of her Father, Earl Ferrers' Fortune — The Elder Sister, Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, one of Roubilliac's famous Group in Westminster Abbey — The younger, Mary Lady Kilmorey — Lady Selina Shirley's Marriage in 1728 to Theophilus Hastings Earl of Huntingdon — His High Character and Fine Intellect — Her Visits to Town and Entrance into Court Circles and into Literary Society with her Aunt, Lady Fanny Shirley, the Friend of Horace Walpole, Pope, Chesterfield, and Doctor Hervey of the " Meditations Among the Tombs "—Lady Huntingdon's presence among the Party of Ladies in the Gallery of the House of Lords sarcastically described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . . 1 CHAPTER II Lord Huntingdon's Five Sisters — Countess Selina's Chief Friend, Lady Margaret, who had been " as happy as an angel " from the time she had adopted the Methodist views — Lady Hunting- don's Hesitation — Her Dangerous Illness and Decision — The Message she sent to the Wesleys — Lord Huntingdon's Fair- mindedness and Kindness — The Marriages of two of his Sisters to English Clergymen Holding Methodist Opinions — Lord Huntingdon's Advice to his Wife to consult his old Tutor, " Good Bishop Benson " — Her Arguments — The Bishop's Con- viction that she Owed them to Whitefield, with his Regret that he had Ordained the Ardent Reformer — Her Answer — The Fascination WTiitefield had for the Fine Ladies of the Day — The Persecution suffered by the Methodists — Some of the Salt of the Earth against them — Hannah More Thankful that she had never attended their Conventicles or entered their Taber- nacles — Countess Selina's Sense of Accountability for her own Class 16 iii CONTENTS CHAPTER III PAGE Days of Trial — The Family as Trial found them — Francis Lord Hastings — Lady Elizabeth Hastings — The two Boy Brothers — The Children in the Nursery — The Visitation of Smallpox — Lord Huntingdon's Dream and its Fulfilment — A Widow Indeed — Wealth and Independence — A Missionary Tour in Wales — A Grande Dame's Duty to her Children — The Auspices under which Francis Earl of Huntingdon made the Grand Tour — The Honours Heaped upon him — Lady Elizabeth Hastings' Appointment at Court — Her Marriage to Lord Rawdon, afterwards Earl Moira — A Different Sphere — The Engraving known as the " Beatific Print " — Lady Huntingdon's Precarious Health forming no obstacle to her efforts . . 33 CHAPTER IV An English Deborah — Her Rebuffs from High Quarters — Letter of the Duchess of Buckingham — Lady Huntingdon's Sunday Evenings in Town — The Company Assembled — No Irreconcila- bles — Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — No Castaways — Lady Suffolk and Lady Betty Germayne — Lady Suffolk takes Guilt to herself — The Necessity for the Establishment of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion — Her many Churches and Chapels in London and throughout the Country — John Wesley's Objections with the Difficulty of Two Suns Shining in One Sky — Founding the College at Trevecca with Fletcher of Madeley as its Superintendent — Countess Selina's Attendance at its Open- ing on her Fiftieth Birthday, and at many of its Anniversaries — The Opposition of Lady Huntingdon's Son to the Trevecca Students — The Different Action on the Part of her Daughter, Lady Moira — The Fate of Trevecca — Lady Huntingdon's Good Will to the Settlers and Slaves of Georgia and the Red Indians in the Backwoods of America . . . . . . . . 46 CHAPTER V The Shirley Tragedy — Strange Character of Lawrence Earl Ferrers — His Marriage — His Excesses and well-nigh Incredible Ill-Treatment of his Wife — Their Separation by Act of Parlia- ment — The Appointment of Earl Ferrers' Steward, Johnson, with the Earl's Consent, as one of the Receivers of his Master's Rents — The Fury of the Ear] at Johnson's Transmitting to the Countess Fifty Pounds Unknown to her Husband — Johnson summoned to Attend at Stanton — The Men Servants sent out of the way — The Women Servants on the Watch hear threatening Words and the Report of a Pistol— Johnson found Fatally Wounded — The Earl's Arrest and Sensational Journey to Lon- don and the Tower — Lady Huntingdon's Compassion for her Unfortunate Cousin — Lord Ferrers' Trial — The Company Present — The Sentence — The Earl's Last Requests — Lady Huntingdon takes his Children to Bid him Farewell — He Wears his Wedding Suit for his Execution — The Cavalcade from _lhe Tower to Tyburn — Lord Ferrers' Death . . . . . . 65 iv CONTENTS CHAPTER VI PAGE Lady Huntingdon's Friends — Sarah Duchess of Marlborough — Two of her Letters — Doctor Young's " Narcissa " — The Chesterfield Family — The Earl and Countess — Lord Chester- field's Sister, Lady Gertrude Hotham — Lord Chesterfield's Winning Manners — His " Leap in the Dark " — Triumphant Deaths of Miss Hotham and her Mother — Friends among the Wives of her Clergymen, Mrs. Venn, Fletcher of Madeley's Wife — The Peculiarities of the Wives of John Wesley and Whitefield — Lady Huntingdon's Affection for Airs. Charles Wesley — Nursing her through Smallpox — Lady Huntingdon's Contemporary, " Grace Murray " — Her Last Meeting with John Wesley — The Humourist, Berridge of Everton, among Lady Huntingdon's Men Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 CHAPTER VII Lady Huntingdon's Three Famous Interviews — With Garrick in the Green Room of Drury Lane to Remonstrate on the Gross Libel of Whitefield as " Doctor Squintum " in the Play of the Minor — Garrick's Courtesy — Her Interview with Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mrs. Cornwallis, in their Palace of Lambeth— The Scandal of their Dissipation— Rude Rebuff and Dismissal — Lady Huntingdon's Interview with King George and Queen Charlotte in their Palace of Kew — Gracious Reception and Attention to her Protest — The Honest Old King — " Good Queen Charlotte " — The King's Indignant Letter of Rebuke to the Archbishop .. .. .. .. ..114 CHAPTER VIII Death of Lord Henry Hastings at the Age of Eighteen — Lady Huntingdon's Distress — The Eagerness with which she Listened to the Suggestion offered by the late Earl's Godson — The Sick- ening of Lady Huntingdon's Younger and Home Daughter, with her Happy Prospects of Marriage to her Cousin — The Future Heir to the Huntingdon Earldom — The Pathos of the Mother's Lamentation, and of her Reminiscences of her Daughter's Peaceful Death-bed — Berridge's Rousing Letter Rebuking the Countess's Excessive Grief . . . . , . . . . . 127 CHAPTER IX Venerable Saint — Countess Moira, the Sole Survivor of Lady Huntingdon's Seven Children — The Earl of Francis Earl of Huntingdon — Old Friends Gone Before — Methodism Vindicated — Lady Anne Erskine Playing a Daughter's Part — Lady Hun- tingdon's Zeal to the very End — Her Work Finished— Death on the 17th of June 117 Years Ago — Buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire — Her Great-Great-Grandson an Ardent Roman Catholic, the late Marquis of Bute . . . . . . . . 131 CONTENTS CHAPTER X PAGE Lady Glenorchy, the Immediate Follower of Lady Huntingdon — Willielma Maxwell — The Future Lady Glenorchy Born, in 1741, the Posthumous Child of a Cadet of the Maxwells of Nithsdale — Maxwell of Preston's Co-heiresses — His two Baby Girls, Mary and Willielma — Second Marriage of their Mother when the Daughters were Fourteen and Thirteen Years of Age to the Scotch Judge, Lord Alva — Character of Lady Alva — Edinburgh Society of the Time — Lady Alva's Ambition for her Daughters — The Maxwell Sisters' Great Marriages, the Elder to the Earl of Sutherland, the Younger to Viscount Glenorchy, Son and Heir of the Earl of Breadalbane — The Characters of Lord Sutherland and Lord Glenorchy — The Cloud that Hung from the First over Lady Glenorchy's Married Life . . . . 139 CHAPTER XI Lord Glenorchy's Half-sister — Death of his Mother in the Year of her Son's Marriage — Lord Breadalbane's Accompanying his Son and Daughter-in-law for the Grand Tour — Called Back from Nice by the Death of his Sister — The Young Couple's Un- satisfactory teie-d-tSte for the Remainder of their Two Years' Absence — A Separation between the Pair never dreamt of — Former Rarity of Divorces or Separate Establishments — Un- compromising Requirement of the Fulfilment of Duty in Difficult Circumstances — Lord and Lady Glenorchy's Return to England and Stay at his own House of Sugnall — Near Neighbourhood of Hawkestone, the Home of Sir Rowland Hill and his Family — Intimacy of Lady Glenorchy with Miss Hill . . . . . . 147 CHAPTER XII The Retirement of Taymouth — Lady Glenorchy's Insensibility to Scenery — Her Conversion in 1765 — The First Question of the Assembly's Catechism — The Answer in the Bible and Prayer — A Creature dwelling Apart while Seeking to Minister to all in Trouble — No Talent for Preaching without Confidence in Her- self — A Shadow over her Spiritual Life — Her Sacred Songs — Her Gentle Unreasonableness — The Sacrament at Dull — Her Preciousness to her Unsympathetic People — The Terrible Sutherland Bereavement — Lady Alva's Strange Encounter — The Little Countess afterwards Duchess Countess of Sutherland — Lady Glenorchy's Diaries . . . . . . . . . . 163 CHAPTER XIII Lady Glenorchy at Holyrood — Indifference to its History — Her General Friendliness — " Means of Grace " in Edinburgh — Weekly Religious Meetings Presided over by the Rev. Robert Walker — The Company Gathered Together — A Glimpse of the Group — Lady Maxwell — Niddry Wynd Chapel — Objections to vi CONTENTS PAGE the Liberal Views with which it was Planned — Doctor Webster's Support — Wesley in Edinburgh — Conference between Wesley and Webster with Lady Glenorchy for Audience — Lady Glenorchy's Separating herself from the Wesleyans and from the Methodists, also Offending both Lady Maxwell and Lady Huntingdon — Lord Glenorchy's Sale of his Estate of Sugnall — Miss Hill permitted to pay Long Visits to Taymouth — Lord Glenorchy's Purchase of Barnton with the Chapel he suffered to be erected there — First Chaplain who Officiated in Niddry Wynd Chapel 180 CHAPTER XIV Advice to Lady Glenorchy as to an Anonymous Lady — Pearls not to be cast before Swine — A Time to be Silent and a Time to Speak — Further Fatherly Counsel from her own Minister, Mr. Walker— The Mistake of Thinking the First Twenty Years of her Life Wasted — Lady Glenorchy leaving Taymouth for Barnton in the Autumn of 1771 on account of Lord Glenorchy's Health, while no Serious Danger was Anticipated and she was unusually Light-hearted — Alarming Symptoms — Quitting Edinburgh on the Morning of the Sacrament Sunday — The Ministers she Summoned to her Aid — Continual Intercession for the Sick Man — His Desire to Listen and Believe— His Death 12th November, 1771 — The Divine Support Given to her — Lord Glenorchy's Generous Will with Lord Breadalbane's Concurrence.. .. 196 CHAPTER XV Lady Glenorchy's Income — Mr. Walker's Wise Advice as to its Disposal — Lady Heiu-ietta Hope — The Hopetoun Family — Lady Glenorchy's Edinburgh Church — The Quaint Laying of the Foundation Stone — Accident during the Building — The Countenance of the Edinburgh Presbytery requested for the Church — The Opening of the Church in 1774 — Lady Glenorchy's Visit to England — Her Appearance at Pinner's Hall — Her Intention to Nominate her Chaplain, Mr. Grove, to be Minister of her Church — Her Vexation at the Reply of the Presbytery when she applied to them to Confirm her Nomination — The Scandal and Disturbance produced by their Answer — Lady Glenorchy so Hurt and Mortified that she would have quitted Scotland if it had not been for the Remonstrances of Lady Henrietta Hope — Mr. Grove's Withdrawal from the Controversy 208 CHAPTER XVI Lady Glenorchy's Advisers — An Unexceptionable Candidate — Objections Nevertheless — Her Defence — The Majority of the Presbytery Satisfied — The Minority Refer the Matter to the Synod — " Jupiter " Carlyle and his Followers — An Injurious vii CONTENTS PAGE Sentence — Lady Glenorchy's Friends in the Synod Appeal to the General Assembly — Her Candidate Retires — She Goes to England, instructing her Agent to Sell Barnton — Lady Glenorchy is Joined by Miss Hill in a Missionary Tour — Lady Glenorchy's Constancy to Old Friends — Meeting at the House of Mr. Holmes, the Welsh Lad who had seen her at Pinner's Hall — The Press-gang Employed Against her at Exmouth — Her Reprisal — The Case in the General Assembly Practically Settled in her Favour — Lady Glenorchy's Return to Scotland — Pathetic Episode of Mr. Sheriff — Settlement of the former Student of Trevecca in " Lady Glenorchy's Church" .. .. .. 221 CHAPTER XVn The Hills of Hawkestone — Jane Hill and her Little Brother — Richard Hill Carrying his Enquiries to Fletcher of Madeley — Jane Hill's Letters — "The Value Lady Glenorchy set upon them — Family Divisions in the Eighteenth Century — Sir Rowland Hill's Merits as a Man and as a Father — Young Rowland Announcing his Brother to Preach — Jane Hill's Inherent Gentleness and Modesty — Rowland Hill's Recollection of the Early Bitterness of the Conflict — Refusal of Six Bishops to Ordain him — Jane Hill's Abundant Tribulation — Her Consola- tion in the Friendships she shared — A Quaint Quartette at Taymouth — Rowland's Moderate Means — His Marriage Help- ing him to Independence — No Reason to Regard the Couple as Ill-matched — Sir Rowland's Second Marriage and Death- Sir Richard's Support of the Methodists — One of the Trevecca Anniversaries at which both Rowland and Jane Hill were Present — Sir John Hill's Five Soldier Sons — WTiat would Jane Hill have thought of the great London Illumination and the Transparency set in front of Surrey Chapel illustrating the words " The Tyrant has Fallen ? " — The Courage of Rowland the Soldier and Rowland the Preacher — Darcy Brisbane of Brisbane afterwards Lady Maxwell of Pollok, born about 1742 — In London at Sixteen to be Presented at Court — At Seven- teen Married to Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok— Death of Husband and Child — Her Unsuccessful Suitors — Her House in Princes Street, Edinburgh — Her Acceptance of Wesleyan Tenets — Her Friendship with Lady Glenorchy — Lady Maxwell's Adopted Daughter, Lady Henrietta Hope — The Blow to Lady Maxwell of Lady Henrietta Hope's Death — Weekly Gathering of Wesleyan Ministers at Lady Maxwell's House — A Day of her Life — Her Signed Covenant with her Maker — Her Assured Faith Alike in her Justification and Sanctification — Her Gifts to John Wesley — Her Schools and Sunday Schools, her Fidelity to Lady Glenorchy's Trust and her Visits to England as Lady Glen- orchy's Representative — Lady Maxwell's Premature Infirmity — Her Peaceful Death at the age of sixty-eight in 1810 . . 237 ^ viii CONTENTS CHAPTER XVIII Frequent Administxatiou of the Sacrament Introduced in Lady Glenorchy's Church — Her Visits to England — Death of Lord Hopetoun — Lady Henrietta Hope's Home with Lady Glenorchy — Opening of a Meeting-house at Carhsle — Last Visit to Tay- mouth — Lord Breadalbane's Death at Holyrood — Lady Glenorchy at Barnton — Declining Health — At Moffat, where Visitors Drank Goat's Whey as well as Mineral Water — Her Work among the Sick Poor — Breakdown of Lady Glenorchy's Carriage at Matlock and Founding of a Chapel there — Last Visit to the Hills — Return to Edinburgh — Life Despaired of — A Rally and a Final Stay at Barnton — At Matlock with Lady Henrietta Hope in 1785— Resort to Bristol to Try the Hot Springs — Death of Lady Henrietta Hope at Bristol on New Year's Day, 1786 — Her Request to Found a Chapel at Bristol Carried out by Lady Glenorchy — The Chapel named the Hope Chapel as a Memorial of a Faithful Friendship — One more Visit to her Chapels at Exmouth, Matlock and Carlisle with the last Chapel she Established at Workington — Barnton Sold — Lady Glenorchy with her Aunt, Miss Hairstanes, in the Countess of Sutherland's House in George Square — Interview with Mr. Jones — Brief Illness — Her Remark to Herself, " If this be Dying it is the pleasantest thing imaginable " — Her Death on the 17th of July, 1786. in her forty-fifth year — Buried in an Excava- tion of the Rock on which her Church was built, her head resting under the Communion Table . . . . . . . . 273 IX List of Illustrations SELINA COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON (Photogravure) ..... THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON .... GEORGE WHITEFIELD. .... TREVECCA HOUSE ..... OLD CHESHUNT COLLEGE .... CHARLES WESLEY ALLEGORICAL PICTURE OF LADY HUNTINGDON LADY GLENORCHY ..... AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY {AuthoY of " Rock of Ages ") . . . . „ p. 252 FrontisP'i iece. To face p. 8 P- 26 P- 58 P- 62 P- 92 P- 134 P- 204 XI The Countess of Huntingdon And her Circle CHAPTER I The Moral and Religious State of England in the Eighteenth Century — The Oxford Revival — The Woman who was the Comrade of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield — Lady Selina Shirley Born in the Reign of Queen Anne in the Year of the Union of the English and Scotch Parliaments — The Tradition of the Early Im- pression made upon her by a Village Child's Funeral — The Engrav- ing which represents her as Lady Huntingdon when well advanced in years — Her two Sisters Co-heiresses with her of her Father, Earl Ferrers' Fortune — The Elder Sister, Lady Elizabeth Night- ingale, one of Roubilliac's famous Group in Westminster Abbey — The younger, Mary Lady Kilmorey — Lady Selina Shirley's Marriage in 1728 to Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon — His High Character and Fine Intellect — Her Visits to Town and Entrance into Court Circles and into Literary Society with her Aunt, Lady Fanny Shirley, the Friend of Horace Walpole, Pope, Chesterfield, and Doctor Hervey of the " Meditations Among the Tombs " — Lady Huntingdon's presence among the Party of Ladies in the Gallery of the House of Lords sarcastically described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Through much of the eighteenth century it may be said that in England vice was rampant in high places and gross darkness covered the people. In addition, a wave of infidelity — the cynical, blighting infidelity of Voltaire — was sweeping over the more intellectual and cultured classes, while the lower ranks were sunk in ignorance and brutality of every kind. 1 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON It almost seemed as if, in spite of the honest endeavours of George the III and Queen Charlotte to maintain a pure Court and to rule over a virtuous and reHgious nation, notwithstanding the honour- able exceptions to the laxity and corruption of the times, Christianity, which St. Augustine had taught and saints innumerable had illustrated by holy lives, and martyrs many had sealed by their devoted deaths, was about to be submerged to make room for the atheism and heathenism which were to reign in the future. It was then that a cluster of young men at Oxford, awakened, by the grace of God, to higher thoughts and loftier aspirations, stimulated by each other's companionship and example, came forth into the great world with almost unparalleled self-sacrifice. These champions of the truth and rescuers of the lapsed gave themselves to a noble work, and spent themselves in its prosecution. Before they ended their days they redeemed the situation and changed the whole aspect of Christian England. They leavened the Church which ejected them with their genuine Christianity. They even salted with their spirituality the super- cilious sneering circles and fierce unreasoning crowds that had most subtly and most violently opposed them. The acts of John and Charles Wesley, George 2 AN ENGLISH DEBORAH Whitefield and their fellows, have been fully commemorated ; but the woman who worked along with them from youth to age, who gave her time, her influence, her substance, and the remarkable organising and ruling power which rendered her the English Deborah of her church and generation, has been less fortunate in her biographers. The chief, her collateral descendant, full of reverent enthusiasm for his ancestress, and in entire sympathy with her aims, has written the story of her Ufe in two volumes. But while these contain much that is profitable, interesting and quaint, they are rather the history of Methodism than the record of one woman's blessings and trials, and the style of the writer is so discursive that to find — in anything Uke sequence the incidents which concern the central figure, resembles the proverbial difficulty of seeking for a needle in a hay-stack. It seems therefore desirable, lest a name deserving of honour should be forgotten by the many who run as they read, that a more concise and individual study of a great and good woman should be offered to the public. Sehna Countess of Huntingdon was born (prob- ably at her father's house of Stanton in Leicester- shire) in the reign of Queen Anne, in the year of the union of the English and Scotch ParHaments, two hundred years ago, 1707. She was the 3 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON second of the three daughters and co-heiresses of Washington Shirley, second Earl Ferrers and Mary Levinge, daughter of Sir Richard Levinge, Solicitor-General for Ireland and Speaker of the House of Commons. By both father and mother Lady Selina was of ancient and honourable descent. The tradition survives that when a little girl of nine years she was much impressed by coming in contact with the funeral of a child of her own age. She joined in the procession and prayed on the spot that when her time came God would deliver her from her fears. With more tenacity than is usually found in so youthful a penitent, she was in the habit for some time of repairing to a closet in her father's house where she could pray unobserved. She persuaded her elder and younger sisters to accompany her for the same purpose. She repeatedly visited the dead child's grave, and she retained through life a vivid recollection of the pathetic scene which had produced so strong an impression upon her. If the child is mother to the woman. Lady SeUna Shirley was likely to grow up a girl at once impulsive and thoughtful. The engraving which is given of her in her kinsman's book represents her when well up in years. She wears the cum- brous but not altogether unbecoming widow's 4 LADY SELINA SHIRLEY dress of the period. The voluminous cap which frames her head, the loose black dress which shows the ample white neckerchief, and the ruffles ending the elbow sleeves, leaving bare the still fine arms and hands, all belonged to the costume of the period. She leans with one hand against her cheek, the elbow resting on a pile of books ; another book — surely her well-beloved Bible — she holds in the other hand. The attitude is full of dignity and repose, while the face is infinitely pathetic, because of the lines of sorrow and care written there for one who in addition to the burden of years and the trials of life, took upon her woman's shoulders the anxieties and responsibili- ties of widely extended works of beneficence, and the cares of all her churches. She was tall, and looks as if she might have been in her earlier days graceful or " elegant," according to the word much in use in her generation. In spite of the wide, low brow, and the deep dark eyes, with their tale of keen observation, and interest in all that was passing around her, she had not, judging from the likeness, any great claim to personal beauty. The nose is decidedly too long and the mouth is at once too wide and too tightly compressed, though the last defect may have been exaggerated by age. It might have been said of her that while beauty is deceitful and 5 2—11300) THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON favour is vain, the woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised. When Lady Selina was grown up she is said to have been strict and precise in the performance of her duties, striving to work out her salvation by her good deeds, without the knowledge and comprehension of the fulness and freeness of Gospel grace. After she had entered into society she still retained so much of her earnestness and thoughtfulness that her prayer was that she might marry into a serious family, a prayer which was certainly granted. Lady Selina' s elder sister. Lady Elizabeth, married two years before her, and died young, after the birth of two children. If Roubilliac the sculptor's work enters into the anguish of the parting between husband and wife, the marriage must have been a happy one, for she was the Lady EUzabeth Nightingale whose famous monu- ment in Westminster Abbey represents the young pair, he striving in despair to shield her from the dart which Death is aiming at her shrinking form. The younger sister, Lady Mary, married at a later date an Irish peer. Lord Kilmorey. Lady Selina, the ruUng spirit of the little group, made the best marriage, in a worldly sense, of the three girls. In every other sense no union of 6 A NOBLE PAIR hearts could have been more perfect, where imperfect humanity is in question, no wedlock more blessing and blessed, in this world of sin and sorrow, than that which tied the knot in June, 1728, between Lady SeHna Shirley and Theophilus Hastings, ninth Earl of Huntingdon. She was twenty-one, and he was thirty-two years of age. She survived him forty-five years, and to the last, in extreme old age, she could not mention his name without tears of affection and regret for their long separation in this world. All those who knew them, both her friends and the men and women widely different in principle and practice, join in recording his tender attachment to her, and her loving appreciation of his talents and virtues. In birth, rank, and wealth, his claims exceeded hers. He could boast royal descent through a long line of noble ancestors, for the family sprang from a Plantagenet Prince, that Duke of Clarence who was brother to Edward IV. Lord Huntingdon's standing among his peers was such that the year before his marriage, he was selected to carry the Sword of State at the Coronation of George II. The dignity and bounty of his establishment of Donnington Park surpassed the advantages of Stanton, but these were the least of its master's merits. ^ 7 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON He was a man of high character, superior intel- lect and liberal and generous temper. After he had completed his studies at Oxford he made the Grand Tour, which in his case extended to Italy and Spain. His intimate associates and friends — among them Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — were the most gifted and accomplished men of the day, though, in other respects, the two mentioned were unlike Lord Huntingdon — the sane, mentally and morally, modest English gentleman, the model of the domestic virtues. In her husband's house the young Countess's talents were cultured, not only by constant inter- course with a man of fine judgment, wide know- ledge and upright conduct, but by contact with distinguished statesmen and brilliant wits. Neither did she remain apart from town society and Court circles. In her visits to London she mixed freely with both, while it is not difficult to believe that she was largely indifferent to the monotonous round of what were then high-bred entertainments, the foolish masquerades, the noisy routs, the morning auctions, the free-and-easy company of the public Gardens, especially the gambling which formed the staple attraction in the gaieties of the hour. Her educated taste, as well as her serious prin- ciples had spoiled her for such amusements. She 8 THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON By permission oj the Governors ofChcsliiint College, Cambridge POPE AT TWICKENHAM greatly preferred what literary society she could command, and that she was fortunate in procuring at the house of a near and dear relation and a lifelong friend, her father's sister. Lady Fanny Shirley. Lady Fanny had a villa at Twickenham in the immediate vicinity of Pope's villa. With the great poet and httle crabbed man, the lady, who was a host in herself, was on most friendly terms. Did she not present him on his birthday with the appropriate gift of a stand-dish and a couple of pens ? And did he not acknowledge the tribute in immortal verse beginning — " Yes, I behold the Athenian Queen Descend in all her sober charms." Neither was Pope's the only poetic and literary offering laid at Lady Fanny's feet. Lord Chester- field was supposed to have had her in his mind in the protest — " So the first man from Paradise was driven," and Hervey, of the solemnly sentimental " Medita- tions Among the Tombs," dedicated to her his dialogues between Theron and Aspasia. Lady Fanny was not unworthy of such compli- ments, for she had been a beauty, a belle, and a bas bleu at the Courts of George I, and George II, a rival of Lady Wortley Montagu, and a friend of Horace Walpole's. She lived to show herself THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON a good and brave woman, who could, when necessary, defy the prejudices of her set, and face their incredulous jeers and mockery. It is an evidence of Lady Huntingdon's inclina- tion even in those early years to think and act for herself, that she was on intimate terms with Lady Townshend, the most outrageously eccentric woman of all the eccentric women of the time who rose up to stir the stagnation of high hfe. Under her oddities she had quick penetration and shrewd observation. It might have been under Lady Townshend's auspices, when infected with a desire to surprise her companions by carrying into action some fancy of the moment, that young Countess Selina indulged in certain caprices of her own in the matter of dress, for which she never seems to have really cared, much beyond what was becoming in her station and at her years. The trifling absurdity was long remembered, and was brought forward against her in later days (by the many among her companions who were hostile to her) as the first symptom of the Shirley madness, breaking out eventually in religious mania. A witness against the offender, whose own nature in its amiable harmoniousness and mod- eration was incapable of startling the pubhc, even as she was incapable of a great woman's 10 A REMARKABLE DRESS self-sacrifice in the service of her Maker and her kind, has described one of the singular dresses worn by Lady Huntingdon at a Drawing-room held by Augusta Princess of Wales, the mother of George II L " Her petticoat was of black velvet embroidered with chenille, the pattern a large stone vase filled with rampant flowers that spread over almost a breadth of the petticoat from the bottom to the top ; between each vase of flowers was a pattern of gold shells and foliage, embossed and most heavily rich. The gown was of white satin, embroidered also with chenille, mixed with gold, no vase on the sleeve, but two or three on the tail. It was a most laboured piece of finery, the pattern much properer for a stucco staircase than the apparel of a lady." So wrote somewhat scornfully Mrs. Pendarvis, one of the most attractive women of her time, whose nature had not the smallest affinity to that of Lady Huntingdon. Yet with her and with her sister, Ann Granville, John Wesley in the early days of Methodism, engaged for a brief space in one of those half- sentimental half -religious corre- spondences, in which the writers signed themselves by fantastically classical names. The practice was so much in fashion that even the most earnest men and women took it up. 11 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Another Court-dress of Lady Huntingdon's, of which a note was made, was even more outre. For painted and embroidered flowers there were animals of every description. One is almost tempted to suspect a satirical allegory in the representation of beasts ramping over the petticoat and train, beasts ranging from the lordly lion to the loathly serpent. It sounds far more in keeping with Lady Huntingdon's character and sympathies to find that she was occupied with the politics in which her husband played a part at this period. She was fain to hear him and his friends speak in a debate in the House of Lords. On account of the interest excited in a question of Spanish en- croachments and depredations on English property, the crowd in the Strangers' Gallery was so great that not an inch of space was left of which the wives of privileged members could avail themselves. On this occasion Lady Huntingdon is found one of a group of women of rank on whose conduct Lady Mary Wortley Montagu employed her caustic pen unsparingly. Here were the Duchess of Queensberry, Prior's " Charming Kitty," no longer young or particularly charming, the Duchess of Ancaster, and other ladies of title. And here again was the young widow, Mary Pendarvis, the Duchess of Portland's " Fair Penny," whom Lord 12 "FAIR PENNY" Baltimore jilted shamefully about this time, Dean Delany's future wife, and finally the dear, dainty, venerable dame, the privileged pensioner of George III and Queen Charlotte, the writer of the delightful letters to which later generations are indebted for an intimate acquaintance with her familiars. Mary Granville, Pendarvis, Delany was only less gifted than her wonderful predecessor across the Channel, Madame de S6vigne, who has preserved the records of the Courts of the great Louis and his successor, and at the same time vouchsafed a ghmpse of the throbbing, warm, tender heart of a woman of genius. The adventure of the cluster of ladies, which would doubtless have been given very differently by one of themselves — Mary Pendarvis — was written with biting satire by a woman of talent, not of genius, of cool worldly wisdom, insolent brilliance, and sphinx-like history. Lady Mary began, after her fashion, by carefully chronicUng the names of the actors in the comedy on the pretence that she looked upon the owners of the names as " the boldest asserters and most resigned sufferers for liberty of whom she had ever read." " They presented themselves at the door of the House of Lords at nine o'clock in the morning, when Sir William Sanderson respectfully informed 13 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON them that the Chancellor had made an order against their admittance. " The Duchess of Queensberry, piqued at the ill-breeding of a mere lawyer, desired Sir WilUam to let them upstairs privately. ** After some modest refusals, he swore he would not admit them ; her Grace, with a noble warmth, answered they would come in, in spite of the Chancellor and the whole House. " This reported, the Peers resolved to starve them out ; an order was made that the doors should not be open till they had raised the siege. " These Amazons now showed themselves quali- fied for the duty of foot soldiers ; they stood there till five in the afternoon, without sustenance, every now and then plying volleys of thumps, kicks, and raps, with so much violence against the door that the speakers in the House were scarce heard. ** When the Lords were not to be conquered by this, the two Duchesses — very well apprised of the use of stratagem in war — commanded a silence of half-an-hour ; and the Chancellor, who thought this a certain proof of their absence (the Commons also being impatient to enter), gave orders for the opening of the door. " Upon which they (the ladies) all rushed in, pushed aside their competitors, and placed themselves in the front rows of the gallery. 14 A SUCCESSFUL STRATAGEM " They stayed there till after eleven, when the House rose ; and during the debate gave applause and showed marked signs of dislike, not only by smiles and winks (which have always been allowed in these cases), but by noisy laughter and apparent contempt, which is supposed to be the reason why poor Lord Hervey spoke so miserably." 15 CHAPTER II Lord Huntingdon's Five Sisters — Countess Selina's Chief Friend, Lady Margaret, who had been " as happy as an angel " from the time she had adopted the Methodist views — Lady Huntingdon's Hesitation — Her Dangerous Illness and Decision — The Message she sent to the Wesleys — Lord Huntingdon's Fair-mindedness and Kindness — The Marriages of two of his Sisters to English Clergymen holding Methodist opinions — Lord Huntingdon's Advice to his Wife to consult his old Tutor, " Good Bishop Benson " — Her Arguments — The Bishop's Conviction that she Owed them to Whitefield, with his Regret that he had Ordained the Ardent Reformer — Her Answer — The Fascination Whitefield had for the Fine Ladies of the Day — The Persecution suffered by the Method- ists — Some of the Salt of the Earth against them — Hannah More Thankful that she had never attended their Conventicles or entered their Tabernacles — Countess Selina's Sense of Accountability for her own Class. As Lady Selina Shirley, the young Countess had longed and prayed to enter on her marriage into a " serious family," and she was not baulked of her wish. Lord Huntingdon's five sisters and half- sisters — Lady Betty, Lady Margaret, Lady Fanny, Lady Catherine, and Lady Ann — were all good women, two of them. Lady Betty — much the senior of some of the others — and Lady Margaret being the most conspicuous for their good deeds. The Countess was a kindred spirit at Donnington Park, Ashby Place, and my Lord's other seats. She was a great dame indeed, and in all the obhga- tions of her station she was as commendable as she had been in her girlhood. She was particular in 16 LIFE AT DONNINGTON PARK the fulfilment of every task which devolved upon her. These ranged from the dignity and blame- lessness with which she ruled her household and entertained the distinguished company which gathered round her husband — to the careful consideration of what was due to the sacred offices of the chaplain at Donnington Park and to the vicar of the parish. To the prayers of the one she listened reverently, while she required the same respectful attention to his lessons from the rest of the household. To the other she gave ungrudging support by her unfailing attendance at church and by her liberal charities, which as often as she could she administered personally. With her sisters-in-law Lady Huntingdon lived on intimate and affectionate terms, the two families being frequently together at Donnington Park and Ashby. She was not the style of woman to be jealous of her husband's relatives or to keep up long bickering quarrels with them on their mutual rights. Both she and they knew her place as the wife of the head of the house, the woman who in her prime could organise and control with admirable judgment and justice a great rehgious system and community to which the diocese of an ordinary bishop was a trifle. She experienced no trouble in recognising and claiming her own posi- tion, and in relegating the members of her circle 17 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON to the positions which they were qualified and entitled to fill. Of her excellent sisters-in-law, Lady Margaret came the nearest to the Countess, but even with Lady Margaret there was a crow to pluck in the first stages of their close alliance more than once. The Ladies Hastings, and especially Lady Margaret, had come betimes under the influence of the Methodist followers of the group of enthusiastic young men at Oxford who had read a new meaning into the title-deeds of religion. These reformers, amidst violent opposition and the utmost obloquy, expressed frequently by the very clergymen who were their brethren in the ministry, were spreading their astonishing tenets far and wide. The crusade extended from rural England to the new far western colony of Georgia, with its slave-owners and slaves. Lady Huntingdon was still in doubt of these Methodists, whose fiery zeal seemed to outrun all prudence and propriety, while their eccentricities, said to be subversive of law and order, were keeping the country in a state of constant commotion. Lady Huntingdon's was a complex temperament. On one side she was original, with much self- resource, even with a touch of what was racy and bizarre as well as warmly impulsive ; on the other hand she was the born aristocrat, with a strong 18 SPIRITUAL PERPLEXITY regard for law and order, and an aversion to tumult and turmoil of any kind. The overthrow of exist- ing standards and institutions was naturally repugnant to her. She was perplexed by Lady Margaret's assertion that ever since she had known some of these Methodist preachers and had believed in their doctrines, she had been " as happy as an angel." Was Countess Selina as happy as an angel — with an angel's or a child's fearless trust and perfect peace ? She had all a woman could ask to make her happy ; the husband of her choice, true and kind, fine children, faithful friends, rank, wealth, and deserved honour and esteem ; neither was she without the " thankful heart " which Joseph Addison had quoted as doubUng all other blessings. But she had not the impUcit trust and unclouded peace any more than she had the devouring absorp- tion in their work, which caused those Methodists to throw up every worldly advantage, to leave behind them safe and happy homes, to rehnquish the sweet affection of wife and child, mother and sister, in order to face gross insult and brutal injury, from which they barely escaped with their lives, because they held their Master's commission and would save souls. She could not act up to her ideals. She had many worries and mortifications. She was often 19 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON dissatisfied and restless. She could not " rest in the Lord," for her Lord was a jealous God, and when she thought how inadequate to his unutter- able majesty and holiness were the offerings which she made to him of her poor, paltry service, the terror of His righteous condemnation would come over her, and she would abase herself in the dust and cower before the fear of Death and the Judg- ment as when in her childhood she was brought face to face with a child's funeral. While Lady Huntingdon hesitated, she was stricken with a sudden, sharp illness, from which her life was in danger, and the matter was decided for her. She remembered the words of Lady Margaret, felt an ardent desire to cast herself and her sins on her Saviour, yielded herself to the Gospel call, renounced every other hope, and for the first time knew the rest and joy of beUeving. From the date of this change she began to recover, and was restored to health once more. As it happened, John and Charles Wesley were then preaching in the neighbourhood, in private houses, court-yards, barns, etc. Lady Huntingdon sent them a message that she was one with them in heart. She wished them good speed in the name of the Lord, and ended by assuring them of her determined purpose to hve for Him who had died for her. 20 METHODISM AND PERSECUTION This was to a certain extent casting in her lot with the despised, derided Methodists, and it aroused a storm of amazement and condemnation. She immediately received her share of the rudeness and abuse with which they were loaded. Lord Huntingdon would not interpose his authority to withdraw her from her new friends and their pursuits, like other husbands in similar case. The most notorious of these indignant and in- tolerant gentlemen was Frederick Frankland, Esq., member for Thirsk, in Yorkshire. He had taken for his second wife a partner no longer young, Lady Anne Lumley, a daughter of the Earl of Scarborough, and a friend of Lady Huntingdon's. The quarrel began three weeks after their marriage, when he found that with two of her sisters she had attended several Methodist meetings and agreed with what she had heard preached. He proceeded to treat her with the utmost harshness. She made no complaint tiU he insisted on her leaving the house. When she begged of him not to force her to do this, and told him that, provided he would allow her to have the sanction of living under his roof, she would submit to anything, his answer was that if she continued there he would murder either her or himself. Her brother. Lord Scar- borough, pled for her in vain. Forced to go within 21 3— 'H«oi THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON a few months from the date of her marriage, the poor woman, humiliated and broken-hearted, only survived the indignity eight months. Lord Huntingdon was no Frankland ; he lent his wife kind and constant support, while it is clear he had not her absolute conviction with regard to the Methodist tenets, though he respected the men who held them for their honest devotion. He received them into his house, where they were from this period frequent guests, with the utmost courtesy and friendliness. In London he accom- panied Lady Huntingdon in her attendance at the Methodist meeting-house in Fetter Lane. When two of his sisters. Lady Margaret and Lady Catherine, who were old enough to judge for themselves, married two English clergymen strongly imbued with Methodist opinions, Mr. Ingham, of Queen's College, one of the old Oxford set, the founder of Methodism in Yorkshire, and Mr. Wheeler, not only did my lord make no ob- jection, but Lady Margaret at least was married from her brother's house in town, and Lord and Lady Huntingdon soon afterwards visited her and her parson in Yorkshire. At the same time, when Lady Huntingdon asked her husband's advice while she was still undecided in the adoption of all the Methodist doctrines, he counselled her to consult his old tutor Benson, the 22 BISHOP BENSON good Bishop of Gloucester, who had ordained the great Methodist leader, George Whitefield, when Whitefield was only twenty-one years of age, and had assisted the lad with money and with sympathy. But that was not to say that the excellent Bishop was not considerably scandalised by the young preacher's subsequent doings, by his disregard for authority, and by the zest with which, Uke a young war horse, he snuffed the battle from afar and flung himself into the thick of it, finally by the lack of discretion and moderation, in accord- ance with which he neither spared himself nor his multitude of disciples. He never turned aside to " rest awhile," but worked himself and them into ecstasies of devotion, till he was tempted to believe that he and they had special revelations. When sitting up all night in high conference, he and they beheld the glory of God shining round about them. For women of Lady Huntingdon's fine nature, as for all the noblest and best of women, self-denial has a charm, and the danger of martyrdom, in contrast to their own soft interests and delicate, dainty practices, presents a powerful fascination. The Countess's own fife was singularly safe, worthy of all respect, touched with the highest happiness that mortals can enjoy on earth. But 23 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON she knew well that many lives, the mass of those around her, differed greatly from hers and her Earl's. She was acquainted with evil passions in high places, with the lust, the greed, the violence with which the England of her day was groaning, so that the rallying cry of the Methodists, " Flee from the wrath to come," seemed only too well founded. Such wickedness permeated the classes — from Court circles to those miners of Kingswood — not so far beyond her ken, wild, half-naked savages and serfs, toiling in darkness, set apart, as it were, for works of darkness, for whom no man or woman had cared till, as she had heard, George Whitefield preached to them from Kingswood Hill — the first memorable field service held by a Methodist clergyman of the Church of England. Did she not owe something — her time, her abili- ties, her influence as a lady of quality, to such miserable people in gratitude for her privileges and blessings ? So she urged, when Bishop Benson attempted to convince her of the unnecessary strictness of her sentiments and conduct. What were any small breaches of conventionality ? What were even transports of enthusiasm, when weighed in the balance with the saving of souls ? - If God Almighty came near to Abraham and 24 INTERVIEW WITH THE BISHOP Moses, why should He not come near to His servants in these latter days ? Why should not the light which blazed on Sinai, shone on the Mount of Transfiguration, and fell with such dazzling effect upon Saul on his way to Damascus, that it Winded him for the time — why should it not be vouchsafed, by Him who is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever, to the men they knew ? Why should He not manifest Himself in like manner to His faithful servants who were giving up their all and risking their very lives as His Christ had done before them ? Had my Lord Bishop not heard of the like white light — whiter than snow and more radiant than the sun — which had appalled and awakened Colonel Gardiner ? The story was had from one who had it direct from Lady Frances Gardiner. Was this the time — when the torch of the Reformation was fast being extinguished, and the nation — the people — were as if drugged, heavy, blind, and torpid, on the brink of perdition — to stand out upon trifles, to hold back because everything could not be done after formal precedents ? Did not David and his men eat of the conse- crated shewbread, and the Lord's disciples pluck the ears of corn and swallow the grains, which the Jews' law forbade them ? Was it not the Pharisees 2S .^ THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON who cried out when a poor sick man or woman was healed on the Sabbath day ? Bishop Benson, who had come to Donnington Park to confute the errors which Lady Huntingdon was beheved to be acquiring from the Methodists, found his temper ruffled by her ladyship's elo- quence, and took his departure openly lamenting that he had ever laid hands on George Whitefield, to whom he attributed the change wrought on her. " My lord," said the Countess, " mark my words ; when you are on your dying bed that will be one of the few ordinations which you will reflect upon with complacence." Possibly when the time came Bishop Benson reflected that none of all the other candidates he had ordained had brought such sheaves of souls into the heavenly gcirner. Lady Huntingdon might approve of liberty, but it was in her character to detest hcense, yet a conspicuous offender on the very points to which the Bishop of Gloucester was most opposed was the man to whom Lady Huntingdon and many like her were most attracted. This was the golden- mouthed young Whitefield, the tall, slight sHp of a lad, Uttle over twenty, with his fair face and dehcate features, his wonderful blue eyes scarcely marred by the cast in one of them, which won for 26 \Phutu in Liiuiy ll\ilktr GEORGE WHITEFIELD ft out the Satioiial Pvrlrail Gallery GEORGE WHITEFIELD him from his enemies and traducers the mocking title of Doctor Squint um. It appeared Httle short of marvellous that at no distant date Whitefield had worn the blue apron of a " drawer " or pot-boy, and had served with ale his mother's customers at the Bell Inn in Worcester. It was a marvel of which he was in no way ashamed, any more than of having been a " servitor " at Pembroke College, Oxford, in succession to Doctor Johnson. Whitefield wrote short notices of his early life and experience, and caused them to be printed and circulated among his followers, that they might bless God on his account and take courage on their own. The contrast between the Drawer and the Preacher was so amazing that in place of injuring his popularity in aristocratic quarters, it simply increased the sensation which made it the fashion for fine ladies to go and hear the eloquent Methodist address an overflowing audience, just as they flocked to the opera to listen to a new singer, or to the theatre to hail a fresh player. It was still more like the ardour with which they crowded the court in which a notorious criminal was to be tried, and hke the assiduity displayed by the fine gentlemen of their set in copying the example of exquisite George Selwyn in waiting upon public hangings. 27 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON But it was from no determination to be in the fashion, no craving for sensationalism, that Lady Huntingdon was constrained to admire and encourage her chaplain, Mr. Romaine's friend, Whitefield, and to appoint him in turn her chap- lain in spite of what were accounted his vagaries. The Methodists were still under the ban of the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical. A great pro- portion of the churches continued closed against them. Such of the Bishops as had a leaning towards the new doctrines supported their advo- cates only lukewarmly, being damped and dis- heartened by what was reported of them — even by some of the salt of the earth on the other side of the question, and by what was declared to be the tendency of the supporters of the new creed to fanaticism and extravagance. The Methodist leaders were driven more than ever to the highways and hedges ; the men had to conduct the sacred ordinances of their religion in private houses and to deliver their sermons at market-places and in the open fields under the canopy of heaven. John Wesley preached standing on his father's gravestone in the churchyard of Epworth, while the church, in which his father had spoken long and faithfully, was shut against the son. This freedom to which the men were compelled 28 THE METHODISTS was in itself an offence, bringing in its exercise conflict with the unrepealed Parliamentary Act against conventicles. Huge crowds were brought together by these unusual proceedings. People came either to sympathise with the speakers or in violent antipathy to them. The result was wild riots, for which the Methodists got the blame, though they were the chief sufferers. They were hooted and stoned, thrown into ponds and pits, and had to resist even to blood. The hostile Bishops issued letters against the Reformers, warned the clergy of each diocese to have nothing to do with these disturbers of the public peace, these subverters of reverence, decency and order. There were even those among the vicars and curates who openly egged on their parishioners to acts of insolence and persecution. Hannah More, one of the chief exponents of the Clapham sect, recorded with satisfaction that she had never been present at a conventicle or entered one of the " tabernacles " like that at Moorfields where the Methodists conducted their services. Notwithstanding Lady Huntingdon's attach- ment to the Church of England, she made common cause from the time her religious convictions became intensified, with the Nonconformists, who were on friendly terms with the clergy, holding the views of the Methodists as of men who loved 29 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Among the dissenters with whom she corresponded freely were Isaac Watts and Phihp Doddridge. These men esteemed the Wesleys, Whitefield, etc., and occa- sionally exchanged pulpits with them, yet they too were a little doubtful of the Methodists' opinions and behaviour, and were somewhat chary of hold- ing ministerial communion with the party, which, like that of the early Christians, " was everywhere spoken against." Lady Huntingdon stood firm. She judged for herself and arrived at her own conclusion, while adhering to the last to the Church of England, but when adherence was impossible, consenting to found a new church. She saw the advisability of the church's expansion. She hailed the advent of lay workers within its bounds, the very measure which so many of its most influential members regarded as well enough for dissenters, but beneath the dignity of, and prejudicial to, the orthodoxy of the Church of England. Some time before John Wesley could bring his mind to it. Lady Huntingdon wrote her approval of the step and mentioned the profit she had derived not only from the laymen's prayers, but from their preaching also. Countess Selina had always sought earnestly to relieve and instruct the poor and ignorant. Now 30 LADY HUNTINGDON'S CHARITY her kitchen was open to them on every lawful day so that they might come there for help and advice. She visited the sick in their own homes and read and prayed with them, nay, in that awful necessity of fleeing from the wrath to come which was always present with her, she addressed the work- people in her service, and urged upon them to repent and to be renewed in spirit. She began to interest herself greatly in the education of the children on Lord Huntingdon's estates, and in all likelihood she added to the unwearied soHcitations with which she besought her friends and acquaintances to try the effects of Methodist preaching by accompan3dng her to hear one or other of her favourite preachers. She laid the foundation of those famous Sunday evening gatherings in her house in town, where aristocratic congregations met to listen to Whitefield or to one of the Wesleys, to Romaine, or to Venn. She seems to have felt herself especially account- able for her own class. This pecuharity is visible all through her remarkable career, and is in striking contrast to the modern choice of the poor of the slums as the proper recipients — not to say of philanthropic charity — but of reUgious missions, and of private and personal influence and teaching. Another motive was present and potent with her as with the clergy of her persuasion in their 31 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON day. The Quality were then a force in the land. Whitefield after addressing them writes of having appealed to the " great and mighty." The same impression was felt by the Reformers in general and by Lady Huntingdon in particular. The terms in which the Methodist preachers dealt with the nobility in their congregations have ceased to prevail. In the innumerable letters from White- field and others, which still exist, the tone, while faithful and stopping short of sycophancy, is not only respectful, it is reverent. The " Honoured Sir or Honoured Madam " with which each epistle begins supplies the key to the style of the contents. The conviction that to persuade and change any of these important personages would be to engage a deep and far-reaching influence on the side of Christianity was very generally entertained. The Countess was actuated by both these motives — sympathy with and responsibility for her class, and her rooted conviction that if they would but be willing to exert their illustrious examples, with God's blessing upon them, they would be shining lights set on high places which would flood the country and give new hope, for the religion of England. 32 CHAPTER III Days of Trial — The Family as Trial found them — Francis Lord Hastings — Lady Elizabeth Hastings — The two Boy Brothers — The Children in the Nursery — The Visitation of Smallpox — Lord Huntingdon's Dream and its Fulfilment — A Widow Indeed — Wealth and Independence — A Missionary Tour in Wales — A Grande Dame's Duty to her Children — The Auspices under which Francis Earl of Huntingdon made the Grand Tour — The Honours heaped upon him — Lady Elizabeth Hastings' Appointment at Court — Her Marriage to Lord Rawdon, afterwards Earl Moira — A Different Sphere — The Engraving known as the "Beatific Print" — Lady Huntingdon's Precarious Health forming no obstacle to her efforts. The impetus given to Lady Huntingdon's convic- tions, which sent her finally across the barrier which divided her from public life, never to retrace her steps, did not originate with herself, it was none of her seeking. How could it be ? It was a summons to leave behind her the peace and gladness of her matronhood and motherhood, in order to tread thenceforth the bleak, unshaded, uphill road, thorn-strewn, watered with tears, alone in the midst of a baffling crowd, the road which no man, and still less no woman, could climb steadfastly, unless upheld by more than human strength. The stately and beautiful home which struck spectators as so safe and enduring was entered again and again by one to whom none can deny himself, was robbed first of its sweetness, next of its glory, and then was speedily left behind. 33 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Lady Huntingdon had borne seven children, one of whom — a baby, Lady Selina — died in infancy. In addition to his own family, Lord Huntingdon had caused to be educated along with his eldest son, Theophilus and George Hastings, the sons of his younger brother, who had been known in his youth by what was, in his case, the courtesy title of Lord Hastings. Lord and Lady Huntingdon's son and heir, Francis Lord Hastings, was considered an " elegant youth " of much promise. He outstripped his companions in their studies, and drew from the poet Akenside — a medical man in the neighbour- hood who might be regarded as a retainer of the family — a set of verses in the lad's honour pre- dicting his future greatness. The elder daughter. Lady Elizabeth, has been described as a bright, far forward girl. Then came two young boys of thirteen and eleven years, the Honourable George and the Honourable Ferdinando, no doubt trials to their tutors striving to keep them in order and idols of old keepers and grooms. The family was wound up by two still small children, a second sweet little Lady Selina, and a bold bantling of an Honourable Henry. There came an evening when the pair of half- grown boys crept into the drawing-room, went stumbUng to their mother's side, and leant against 34 A GREAT BEREAVEMENT her, muttering unwonted complaints of their tired bones and aching heads. She looked into their flushed faces and heavy eyes and pronounced with a sinking heart that they must have a Dover's sweating powder that night and be blooded next morning, while she strove to tell herself that nothing more would be needed. When the morning came there was hot haste and the speeding away of all who had any title as outsiders, for it was known beyond question that the scourge of the century was there — the boys had been stricken with smallpox. In a short time the most dreaded of malignant diseases had done its work — George and Ferdinando Hastings, dis- figured, almost beyond recognition by the mother who bore them, lay in their coffins. It was a crushing bereavement, but so far as the Countess was concerned there still remained an earthly as well as a heavenly consoler, who stilled the ache of his own heart and hid how he missed the light steps and merry voices of his boys in the stillness of the great house, in order to remind her that they were the children of many prayers, of the covenant which had been made for them with the God who had taken them in love, surely not in anger, from evil days to come. Her husband was there to bid her look around her and count the mercies spared to her. And for his sake and in 35 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON loyalty to the supreme Governor of all, she was willing to meet Lord Huntingdon on his own unselfish ground. She was ready to comply with his entreaties and resolve that her heart should not break, nor be divided between her two dead and gone sons. But the sky still held another and more deadly bolt which, with the suddenness of lightning, descended before two more years had gone on the woman once so highly favoured, a heathen Greek might have said of her, with bent head and bated breath, that the gods would take their revenge for the undue portion of prosperity and happiness which a mere mortal possessed. Lord Huntingdon was still in his fiftieth year, his Countess in her thirty-ninth year. They were not beyond the early autumn of their days. They might with reason have reckoned on many more long, happy years to be spent together in faithful discharge of their duties, and in growing devotion _and charity. But their Master had not so willed it. One morning my lord — shrinking a little from repeating the foolish tale which it would hurt his wife to hear, and yet somehow impelled to warn her of what might be coming upon her — even while he laughed at his own superstition, reminded the Countess that he was not in the habit of dreaming, indeed, he believed he had never dreamt in his life 36 LORD HUNTINGDON DIES before, which might account for his nerves being so struck by the vision which had confronted him. He had seen in his sleep a skeleton creep up and settle down between her and him. Lady Huntingdon listened — one may be sure with widening eyes and whitening cheeks — and then joined him in laughing more loudly than was her habit at the folly of minding a dream. In the course of the month he had the stroke of apoplexy from which he never rallied. He died in November, 1746. It is vain to speak of what passes the compre- hension of so many, the desolation which only the love of her God and her kind could change so that the desert of her life should bud and blossom again with the flowers and fruit of Paradise. On the monument erected to Lord Huntingdon and his family, to which Lord Bolingbroke con- tributed the epitaph, Lady Huntingdon had her bust placed as a token of that union of the wedded couple which Death could not sever entirely, while she survived her husband for nearly half-a-century . With entire trust in his Countess, Lord Hunting- don left to her, without conditions, the bulk of his large fortune and the control of the family affairs. As a matter of course, his elder son succeeded to the Earldom of Huntingdon and the Barony of Hastings and the estates which went with the title. 37 4— (2300) THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Quite independent and perfectly free to adopt the course on which she could trust that her husband would look down, if he might — " With larger, other eyes than ours," two years after her husband's death Lady Hunting- don took a more pronounced step than she had hitherto attempted, she went on what maybe called a crusade or missionary tour in Wales. She was accompanied by her elder daughter at the age of seventeen and her little girl just turned ten. There was a bevy of clergymen and a cavalcade of carriages and horses ; with these she accom- plished by her clergymen in attendance, fifteen days' preaching through the Principality. The picturesque train wended their way, the members of her escort preaching as often as five times a day in the larger towns, and in the remote villages. It is said that the leader of this party was greatly struck by what she heard then for the first time, the groans and sobs of an emotional, unconventional congregation. All the while the Countess was strictly mindful of what was due, in a worldly sense, to the late Earl's children and her own, and of what she felt herself bound to procure for them. Her loyalty to her class and her fidelity to her friends, however much they might differ from her in tastes and 38 THE COUNTESS IN SOCIETY habits, even in principles and creeds, were pecu- liarly characteristic of her. It seems a testimony to all that is best in her that while such a man as Horace Walpole never mentioned Lady Hunting- don's name without a cynical scoff, other men of the world — to wit, Chesterfield and Bolingbroke, her own and her husband's old friends, with women of fashion, if not so intellectual as the men, as much opposed to whatever was beyond the mere round of ambitions and pleasures of this earth earthy, continued to treat her with the greatest respect and regard. They sought her society and relied on her goodwill, while she, on her part, never lost her hope that they would turn to better things, and was only concerned, so far as she had to do with them, that they should not miss the oppor- tunities which might be blessed at last. None could tell when the Spirit might not open the eyes of the blind, or waken the sleepers, and raise the dead to newness of life. As soon as the new Lord Huntingdon was twenty-one years his mother, to whom he was always politely attentive in his behaviour with suave deference, whether or not any remnant of genuine kindness lingered behind, vacated Don- nington Park in order that he might form his own establishment there. She agreed willingly to his making the Grand Tour, though he made it under 39 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON the auspices of his godfather, Lord Chesterfield, of whom Francis Hastings appears a smaller, less brilliant reflection. Chesterfield had been the late Earl's friend, and he continued to the last the intimate friend of the family. And was he not the finest, best-bred nobleman of his day, \vith the most distinguished circle of acquaintances at home and abroad to whom he could introduce the young man ? Could the elder man not be trusted to refrain from instil- hng his heartless sophistries and his confirmed unbelief into the son of the friend who had thought so differently ? Even if Chesterfield could be guilty of taking advantage of his position to betray the confidence reposed in him in relation to religion and morals, should not Francis Hastings' godly upbringing have rendered him proof against insidious attacks ? He could not be kept from the knowledge of the license and free thinking abounding in the world around him, else how was he rightly and intelli- gently to stand up for the truth and give a reason for the faith that was in him ? Whether Lady Huntingdon was too careless or too yielding, or whether she could not help herself, and the choice was taken out of her hands, it is impossible at this distance of time to tell. Cer- tainly it was pla3ang with fire, and the result was 40 THE YOUNG EARL she was burned to the bone and marrow in the end. On Lady Huntingdon's son's return from abroad he was found to have the grace of a " foreign courtier " (of a petit maitre in fact), but though he was bland and plausible, as might have been expected from the adopted son of the worldling of worldlings, Chesterfield, the young Earl lacked his father's solid worth and virtue as he lacked the elder man's wisdom and judgment. The son found no fault with his mother's views and actions, while he was absolutely without sympathy where they were concerned. But the pronounced infidelity which distin- guished Francis Earl of Huntingdon in later years, with regard to which Lady Huntingdon hoped against hope that he would live to learn that the finite cannot measure the infinite, and that religion is not a growth of the reason (though rightly understood reason and religion cannot be in opposition), but belongs to the conscience and the heart, and to that higher spirit of man which is in communion with the spirit of God who made him, was now only nascent. The Earl's unbehef and his indifference to the questions which were dear as life itself to his mother could hardly have been in active hostility as yet. It was only a cloud hanging threateningly 41 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON on the horizon, and it must have been with natural gratification that she learned the honours heaped upon him as a tribute to his father's memory and his own scholarly attainments. He was named Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, and a member of the Privy Council. He carried the Sword of State at the Coronation of George HI as his father had carried it at the Coronation of George IL He was appointed Lord- Lieutenant of one of the Yorkshire Ridings and of the city of York. He held also the office of Groom of the Stole in the Royal Household. Lady Elizabeth Hastings, the Countess's elder daughter, resembled her mother in so far that she was not beautiful, but was full of spirit and ability. At eighteen the Countess sought and found for her a place at Court to act as Lady of the Bedchamber, while yet a girl herself, to two of the younger princesses, girls in their early teens, daughters of the Prince and Princess of Wales and sisters of George HL No doubt times and manners were improving. The household of the widowed Princess of Wales was decidedly more decorous and better cared for than the Countess had known the Court of George H and Queen Caronne to be, not to say than the still more unseemly and disorderly Court of George I, presided over by the Duchess of Kendal and 42 HORACE VVALPOLE'S PHRASE her rival, at which Lady Fanny Shirley had figured. Still a Court was a highly charged atmosphere beset with snares and pitfalls for a lively girl of eighteen. But Lady Elizabeth's place was there as a young lady of quality, and she was bound to fill it, to bear its trials and resist its temptations. After all she did not hold the post long ; it was not many months before she resigned it and retired into private life. In the absence of any other reason for her withdrawal which has survived, one is thrown out on the light assertion of Horace Walpole, " The Queen of the Methodists got her daughter named for Lady of the Bed- chamber to the Princesses, but it is all off again as she will not let her play cards on Sundays." There may be a grain of truth in the careless statement, for, strong as was Lady Huntingdon's sense of the rights which belonged to her daughter's station in life and of the corresponding duties which devolved upon her, the mother may have regarded the advantage of a place at Court outweighed and its obUgations annulled by arrangements which she could not consider con- sistent with a young Christian gentlewoman's walk and conversation. A year after Lady Elizabeth's retirement the calamitous marriage of the elder of her charge, a 43 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON thoughtless girl of sixteen, to the half-witted King of Denmark, was duly celebrated at St. James's Palace, the Princess's brother, the Duke of York, acting as proxy for the King. When Lady Elizabeth was twenty-one years of age, six or seven years after her father's death, about 1752, she married Lord Rawdon, afterwards created Earl Moira. He was a full cousin of her mother's and her contemporary, being a man of forty-five years of age. We are told that with this marriage Lady Huntingdon "was extremely happy and contented," so that we are free to give his Lordship credit for various merits, including the sedateness to be expected from his time of life. From the date of her marriage the daughter had an orbit of her own, the ambitious orbit of a social leader. She passed out of her mother's sphere ; she, too, does not seem to have had much sym- pathy with her mother, though Lady Moira was accustomed to treat Lady Huntingdon with the utmost respect, very much as if the Countess were a great personage who was a law unto herself, whose life and example stood apart from those of ordinary individuals. Lady Moira when an old woman is said to have spoken with interest of the engraving of Lady Huntingdon entitled by Horace Walpole " The beatific print." It represented her with her foot 44 THE COUNTESS AND HER MISSION on her coronet. What did it mean ? That she had done with such vain baubles ? or was it not rather that giving them their proper value, as privileges and distinctions of her class, she yet held them as utterly worthless in comparison with a higher order of nobility. With the elder members of the family thus launched on the world, and taking their course independent of her, and the younger members still in the schoolroom, the Countess of Huntingdon saw herself at hberty to carry out her mission. The precariousness of her health did not interfere with the obligations she had taken upon herself. She was Uable in her prime and in the latter part of her life to severe attacks of illness, from which her recovery was often doubtful. She was accus- tomed to speak of them as very much a matter of course, and a chastisement which was ap- pointed for her. On one occasion she quoted Luther's testimony as applicable to herself, that " he was never employed about any fresh work but he was either visited with a fit of sickness, or violent temptation." 45 CHAPTER IV An English Deborah — Her Rebuffs from High Quarters — Letter of the Duchess of Buckingham — Lady Huntingdon's Sunday Evenings in Town — The Company Assembled — No Irreconcilables — Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — No Castaways — Lady Suffolk and Lady Betty Germayne — Lady Suffolk takes Guilt to herself — The Necessity for the Establishment of Lady Huntingdon's Con- nexion — Her many Churches and Chapels in London and through- out the Country — John Wesley's Objections with the Difficulty of Two Suns Shining in One Sky — Founding the College at Trevecca with Fletcher of Madeley as its Superintendent — Countess Selina's Attendance at its Opening on her Fiftieth Birthday, and at many of its Anniversaries — The Opposition of Lady Huntingdon's Son to the Trevecca Students — The Different Action on the Part of her Daughter, Lady Moira — The Fate of Trevecca — Lady Hunting- don's Goodwill to the Settlers and Slaves of Georgia and the Red Indians in the Backwoods of America. The rebuffs, the unreasonable resentment, the lack of gratitude, which were frequently Lady Huntingdon's portion in return for her efforts to induce her friends and acquaintances to listen to what she held was Divine Truth, might have wearied and overcome a less dauntless and large- hearted woman, but here was one who could not be humiliated in a good cause, and did not count on gratitude from those she sought to benefit. A letter from the Duchess of Buckingham, the illegitimate daughter of James H, married first to the Earl of Anglesey, from whom she was divorced, and secondly to Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, though very civil to the Countess herself, is an instance of the light in which her preachers and 46 A SHOCKED DUCHESS their creed were viewed by many of those whom she tried to bring under their influence. " I thank your Ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist preaching ; these doc- trines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks and do away with all distinction, as it is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding. ** Your Ladyship does me infinite honour by your obliging enquiries after my health. I shall be most happy to accept your kind offer of accom- panying me to hear your favourite preacher, and shall await your arrival. The Duchess of Queens- berry insists on my patronising her on the occasion, consequently she will be an addition to our party. " I have the honour to be, " My dear Lady Huntingdon, " Your Ladyship's most faithful and obhged, " C. Buckingham." Lady Huntingdon's Sunday evening assemblies, like the Gospel net, gathered in good and bad indiscriminately. They included her circle and far beyond her circle of the fashionable and intellectual, and also the riotously vicious and 47 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON notoriously unbelieving sets which made up the exclusive world to which she belonged. The attendance which curiosity, the fashion of the day, love of novelty and of a sensation, together with more honest interests converted into a throng, did not fail. It numbered many men and women who, for any other cause, would have been out of her ken, or if known to her would have excited her reprobation. But in the double sense of sin and salvation, there were no irredeemable castaways among the great, any more than among the small. It was as if in that wonderful volcanic period of English history the eternal truths of the world to come were suddenly, by an overthrow of all conventionalities, brought face to face with the lying vanities of the time ; and men and women were suddenly called upon to choose between them. The presiding genius of the situation made all welcome. As she listened with aU her heart to the eloquent sermons, enlightened lectures, and passionate appeals of her army of peace, she could not despair of the conversion of her old familiar friends — Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — who were present on various occasions at these meetings at her house. Chesterfield even went so far as some- times to attend, for the gratification of his love of oratory, Whitefield in other quarters. 48 A BOW AT A VENTURE Neither did Lady Huntingdon venture to condemn offenders of her own sex of less intellect but with more scandalous reputations. Might not Lady Suffolk and Lady Betty Germayne be brought to see what had been the error of their ways ? All were sinners in God's sight ; none had a right to judge his or her neighbour, far less to bar the bridge which spanned the gulf between the saved and the lost. Lady Suffolk's conduct after one of Lady Huntingdon's Sunday evenings furnishes an ex- ample of a sinner taking guilt to herself. It exhibited in addition the chief actor in the scene carried out of herself by rage, for she has been generally represented as a placid woman of an even temper. " Lady Rockingham prevailed on Lady Huntingdon to admit the beauty to hear her chaplain " (at this time Whitefield). " He, how- ever, knew nothing of her presence ; he drew his bow at a venture, but every arrow seemed aimed at her. She just managed to sit out the service in silence, and when Mr. Whitefield retired, she flew into a violent passion, abused Lady Hunting- don to her face, and denounced the service as a deliberate attack upon herself. In vain her sister- in-law, Lady Betty Germayne, tried to appease the beautiful fury, or to explain her mistake. In 49 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON vain old Lady Ellinor Bertie and the Duchess Dowager of Ancaster, both relatives, commanded her silence ; she maintained that she had been insulted. She was compelled, however, by her relatives who were present to apologise to Lady Huntingdon with a bad grace, and then the mortified beauty left the place to return no more." Lady Huntingdon was more successful with other ladies of rank, of whom she wrote cheerfully to Doctor Doddridge that among their Christian converts she trusted there would be found of " honourable women not a few." But the time had come for Countess Selina to do more than to attend on the sermons of the Methodist preachers, to reckon the preachers among her best and dearest friends, to receive them into her house, and to bring select crowds to be edified by them. She was now practically independent and in possession of a large fortune, while the desire of her heart was that her English people, notably her class in society, should be saved, when the recovery of the other lapsed classes — by no means neglected by her — would follow. Lady Huntingdon withstood the divisions and controversies which were beginning to arise among the Methodists — sore trials to many and sources of bitterness to all. To sweeten these sources required long years, and the honest trust and regard 50 THE MORAVIANS which, though they had sometimes been stretched to the uttermost, flowed again at last in the old channels. Grace and works were brought into conflict as of old, John Wesley, in spite of his denial, was accused of setting too much store on works. Whitefield, the apostle of free grace, was assailed as a " predestinarian " and a Calvinist. The Moravians, headed by Count Zinzendorf, were supported by Whitefield, Ingham, and Charles Wesley, who were enchanted by the sect's simplicity and piety. These Moravians established colonies in England and joined the Methodists to a considerable extent. But the Moravian speculations and what struck the religious public as their dangerous lack of standards and creeds, and their indifference to orthodoxy, soon repelled the great body of the serious-minded English, and brought upon those Methodists who had fraternised with the Moravians a similar charge of grave heresy. These accusations distracted and divided whole circuits, and dispersed entire congregations of the faithful. It was high time that greater order and harmony should be restored. It was clear to the interested and thoughtful that field-preaching could only be a temporary resource. More than that, it left out, unless on exceptional occasions, the Quality, 51 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON those fine ladies and gentlemen to whom Lady Huntingdon by all her antecedents was bound, on whose power, dignity, wit, and influence, she counted for benefits to all. If the existing churches were largely withheld from the Methodist clergymen of the Church of England, substitutes must be found for the churches, and Lady Hunting- don and her fortune were at the service of her world, to take the chief part in providing these substitutes. Thus originated the " Connexion " with which her name is linked. She had already promoted various schools and one well-known orphanage — Kingswood. Later she was to found a college for Methodist students at Trevecca, near Talworth, in South Wales. Now she began to build, repair and maintain, for the most part at her own expense, many chapels in different parts of England. Among the most noted were those at York and Huddersfield in the north, in the mid- lands those at Gloucester and Worcester, in the south at Lewes and Brighton, in the east at Norwich and Margate, and in the west at Swansea. Even a large fortune could only stand such drains with difficulty, and Lady Huntingdon dis- posed of part of her jewels in order to build the chapel at Brighton.. 52 THE "CONNEXION" The special resorts of real or supposed invalids of the upper classes and their friends at Bath, Bristol, Tunbridge Wells, and Cheltenham, were not forgotten in a provision for their spiritual needs. In London the chapels or tabernacles with which the Countess was most concerned, which she helped to sustain, were Whitefield's Tabernacle at Moor- fields, the Tottenham Court Chapel, Long Acre Chapel (notorious for the street riots which disturbed its services), and Spa Fields Chapel. Lady Huntingdon placed in charge of the chapels, for which she was the sole or principal subscriber, clergymen who were Calvinistic Methodists, of whom Whitefield was the repre- sentative. It is easy to understand how the lofty sternness of Calvinism with its utter self-surrender appealed to such a woman, and rather than abjure its doctrines she resigned herself, when only one of two courses was left to her, to be ejected from the Church of England. Lady Huntingdon's " Connexion " as it was called numbered as many as sixty clergymen with a host of lay workers. Some of the clergymen were settled in their spheres of work, but the greater number, connected with the larger towns and chapels, preached in rotation, having rounds or circuits, which they followed, much in accordance 53 5— (•!••» THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON with John Wesley's system. Lady Huntingdon accepted the responsibility of appointing and placing the men whom she chose at their posts, and of dismissing or of transferring them if they did not answer her expectations, of if she believed they would do better in other quarters. These clergymen were sent out and employed by her when and where she thought it desirable on courses of preaching throughout England and in Scotland and Ireland. As the tremendous burden of the care of the early Christian churches devolved upon St. Paul, so the seeing to the welfare, integrity and efficiency of her " Connexion " rested on the Countess's bent and bereft woman's shoulders. Her organising power must have been marvellous ; her fideUty to her self-imposed duties prevailed to the last stage of mortal weakness. She did the work of a bishop, and amidst all the taunts and sneers heaped upon her for unwomanly presumption and rank fanati- cism, not one accusation survives of caprice, injustice, or of weak incapacity. As a proof that even among the best and truest of their Master's servants there can with difficulty be two leaders in the same cause, as there cannot be two suns in the same sky. Lady Huntingdon's old friend, John Wesley, lost conceit of her at this time, and declared that she had grown 54 WESLEY CRITICISES HER LADYSHIP arrogant and despotic, that her constant talk was of " my schools," " my orphanage," or, as it might be, " my churches." But this was a momentary outburst on the part of a great and good man, who was nevertheless fallible, and had grown nettled and restive, unaccustomed as he was to have his authority disputed, or to encounter a rival. And arrogance and despotism, however much they are to be deprecated, are something widely different from unfairness, untrustworthiness, and foUy. Neither is there sufficient evidence for this accusation of arrogance and despotism. Lady Huntingdon's letters, written in the Scriptural language and stereotyped phraseology of the religious world of her day, which lend a certain air of artificiality to what was written in all earnest- ness and good faith, while they express the strength and confidence of a woman who knew herself equal to her position and her task, do not betray under the strained words more than natural self- reliance. There is no sign of imperiousness or tyranny. As for the few personal references preserved of the Countess, they have the simple modesty and genuineness which might have been looked for from a woman so gifted and godly. THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Both before and after the estabhshment of her Connexion, Lady Huntingdon was in the habit of travelling accompanied by one or other of her chaplains, or by other clergymen to the districts where there was an urgent call for a chapel, or after the chapel was given, to inspect its working and decide on its requirements. But she does not seem to have made another progress so imposing as that which she conducted in Wales two years after her husband's death. The Conferences of Methodists which met from time to time at different centres, where the leaders discussed the tenets and the poHcy of the body, were matters of keen interest to Lady Huntingdon, and she attended one of them at Leeds. But there is no mention of her having come forward in any pronounced way, or of her having let her voice be heard in the assembly. In her own home she occasionally addressed her household and prayed with them. An anecdote is told of her in relation to this practice. Two comparative strangers, an uncle and a niece, were availing themselves of the hospitality of the great house for a night. The niece, a bold, giddy girl of the world — worldly, prepared to witness the performance with idle indifference and supercilious abstraction. The custom was for the members of the household and the guests to stand behind 56 A BREACH OF MANNERS their chairs, forming a circle around the tall, slightly swaying figure at the reading desk. Her Ladyship's elocution, in course of time and of much intercourse with any number of Methodist public speakers, had inadvertently borrowed from them — not the wonderfully flexible and melodious tones of Whitefield, or of the sinner Dodd, not the trumpet tones of John Wesley, but the drawl — not so much plaintive as well-nigh whimpering — of the more ilHterate orators. The girl, who had been introduced into a scene altogether foreign to her, had not even the slender amount of modesty and reverence which would have made her restrain herself, she burst into an audible titter, to the horror of her uncle, a well- bred man of the world. Lady Huntingdon had a large acquaintance among girls. She had daughters of her own, the younger of whom was fast growing up. Her niece, Miss Nightingale — Lady Ehzabeth's daughter — and especially another niece and namesake. Miss Sehna Margaretta Wheeler, were in the habit of paying her long visits. But they were all gentle- women in more than in name, and were accus- tomed to treat their hostess not only with affection, but with the deference which was in her generation paid to all women of her age and rank, and was due to her above all. 57 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Lady Huntingdon, who must have been aware of the outrage, did not so much as open her eyes, and neither then nor afterwards when she enter- tained her two visitors with the utmost poUteness did she give the smallest sign of having been sensible of the unseemly barn-door behaviour. The Countess certainly preferred to avail herself at prayers of the services of a clergyman, even of a lay worker, or of one of her Trevecca students. Her determination to make the last play their part was sometimes enforced in an informal, almost comical, manner. She would thrust a Bible into their hands, and point them to the door of their private sitting-room, bidding them do their duty and trust in God. It was in the winter of 1767 that Lady Hunting- don, then living at Bath, sought the advice of her great friend Fletcher — incumbent of the parish of Madeley, one of the most popular and beloved of all the Methodist clergymen. He was French by extraction, and to his other gifts and graces he added the most kindly, single-hearted disposition, and the most open-hearted, open-handed charity, which caused him and his like-minded wife to convert the vicarage at Madeley into an open house for all the poor, ignorant and afflicted in the neighbourhood. The Countess wished to consult her friend on 58 < ~ '■J = TREVECCA HOUSE the plans she was forming for her College at Tre- vecca. She proposed to admit Christian young men resolved to devote themselves to God's service. They were at liberty to stay in the college three years, during that time they were to have their education gratis, with every necessary of life, and a suit of clothes once a year. Afterwards those who desired it might enter the Ministry, either of the established Church of England, or as Protestants of any other denomination. With the discrimination which was one of her endow- ments she invited Fletcher to undertake the superintendence of her College. This applied to the appointment of masters, the admission and exclusion of students, the supervision of their studies and conduct, to aiding them in their pious efforts and to judging of their fitness for the Ministry while he still continued the devoted parish priest of Madeley. This invitation Fletcher accepted, taking no fee or reward for his services. Trevecca House, used for the College, was a massive old building, beheved to be part of a castle which had existed in the reign of Henry II. The date over the entrance was 1176. The College was opened for religious and literary education, and the Chapel dedicated, Whitefield and various clergymen officiating, on the 24th of 59 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON August, 1768, Lady Huntingdon's fiftieth birthday. Fletcher of Madeley was president, while a gen- tleman named Easterbrook was assistant-presi- dent and headmaster. An early student named Glazebrook was a parishioner of Fletcher's, a collier and iron worker in Madeley Wood. He proved to be a man of decided ability and worth, reflecting credit on the College, and on the Church in which he was afterwards an ordained clergyman. His fellow-students, when sufficiently instructed, went out either as lay workers in the nearest villages and towns, or after a more complete educa- tion, became pastors of one or other of the dissent- ing churches, or were, with increasing difficulty, received as deacons and priests in the Church of England. Lady Huntingdon, accompanied by various friends of her sex and set, was present at the opening, and at many of the anniversaries, staying for the time in the College, in the prosperity of which she took great delight. Crowds came from far and near on these days. Among the numerous well-known clergymen who preached and adminis- tered the Communion, was her cousin, Mr. Shirley, brother of the unhappy Lawrence, Earl Ferrers. It would have been impossible for the Countess, burdened as she was with the expenses of her 60 HELP FOR THE COLLEGE churches, to have kept up by her sole efforts the growing College, had it not been that she was liberally assisted by those who shared her views, more or less. Twice she received a contribution of five hundred pounds from John Newton's patron, the philanthropic banker, Thornton ; another thousand was given to her and gathered for her by her Scotch friend, the woman whose career was most like that of Lady Huntingdon's in a generation which they both graced. Lady Glenorchy. Not only the absence of the shghtest sympathy, but the positive hostility of Francis Earl of Huntingdon, to the cherished views and projects of his mother, whom he treated personally with the elaborate courtesy of the school of Chesterfield, was shown in connection with a student of the College of which she was so proud and fond. The same early student, Glazebrook, who had struggled honourably and faithfully against many obstacles and thwartings from Oxford tutors and dignitaries of the Church of England, of which he had become an ordained clergyman, in his difBculties with his Bishop and his Archdeacon, wrote to his first benefactress begging her to use her influence with her son to name him for one of the livings of which the Earl was patron. Glazebrook' s father-in-law, an old friend of the Countess, the chief medical 61 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON man in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, supported the application. To both requests she had to make the same sorrowful reply. It would have been a great pleasure to her to do as they wished, if she had not certainly known that the petition would never be obtained by her. For more than thirty years her son's " most implacable dislike " had proved to her that he would never be entreated on the subject. To do Lady Huntingdon's daughter, Countess Moira, justice, her attitude to a student of her mother's institution, himself an able and excellent man, was very different. On the death of her brother without lawful heirs, she succeeded him in the Barony of Hastings and the lands connected with it; when the same application was made to her, she befriended the former Trevecca student readily and kindly, presenting him to the living of Belton, in Leicestershire, where he spent the rest of his useful life. On the expiry of the lease on which Trevecca House was held, soon after the death of Lady Huntingdon in 1791, the College, in accordance with the wish of its foundress, merged into Cheshunt College, the well-known institution for Nonconformist theological students in Hertford- shire, which was opened in August, 1792, on the 62 '?'. C3 - '^ REMOVAL TO CHESHUNT anniversary of the opening of Trevecca and the birthday of Lady Huntingdon. It had already been arranged that it should be supported by sub- scription, and its affairs managed by seven trustees appointed for the purpose. To Cheshunt went the Communion Plate and the Library which had been Lady Huntingdon's original gift at Trevecca. Great as were these benefactions of chapels, college, etc., etc., and the aid rendered by the Countess to such hospitals and reformatories as were then in existence, they were by no means the limit of Lady Huntingdon's schemes for the good of human kind. Her enthusiasm knew no bounds. Her zeal extended to all who were in her estimation benighted, to Jews, Turks, and infidels wherever they were to be found. It need hardly be said that, shrewd as she showed herself, and surrounded as she was by wise as well as eager coadjutors, she was sometimes deceived and made the victim of imposture. But neither mortification nor disappointment availed to cool her passion for her Christian work or wear out her love for her brethren and sisters. She had from the first subsidized Whitefield's labours in Georgia, especially in connection with his orphanage of Bethesda. One of the far-reach- ing schemes, born of a boundless faith fit to move 63 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON mountains, was imparted in two letters still extant which she addressed to George Washington. She proposed, with his concurrence, to devote the income of her estates in the time to come to a great mission to the Red Indians. (yi CHAPTER V The Shirley Tragedy — Strange Character of Lawrence Earl Ferrers — His Marriage — His Excesses and well-nigh Incredible Ill-treatment of his Wife — Their Separation by Act of Parliament — The Appoint- ment of Earl Ferrers' Steward, Johnson, with the Earl's Consent, as one of the Receivers of his Master's Rents — The Fury of the Earl at Johnson's Transmitting to the Countess Fifty Pounds Unknown to her Husband — Johnson summoned to Attend at Stanton — The Men Servants sent out of the way — The Women Servants on the Watch hear threatening Words and the Report of a Pistol — Johnson found Fatally Wounded — The Earl's Arrest and Sensational Journey to London and the Tower — Lady Hun- tingdon's Compassion for her Unfortunate Cousin — Lord Ferrers' Trial — The Company Present — The Sentence — The Earl's Last Requests — Lady Huntingdon takes his Children to Bid him Fare- well — He Wears his Wedding Suit for his Execution — The Cavalcade from the Tower to Tyburn — Lord Ferrers' Death. It is impossible to write even a short life of Lady Huntingdon and omit what touched her and hers so nearly as the calamity of the ghastly end of her cousin, her father's heir, Lawrence Shirley Earl Ferrers. He was, next to her sons, her nearest male relative, the successor to her father's title and estates ; his place, where his crime was com- mitted, was her own early home of Stanton. In her youth he was a famiUar companion. His character presented so strange a blend of a kind of cleverness, and the extreme of folly domi- nated by frenzies of passion, for which he hardly seemed accountable, that looking back on the man and his miserable story at this distance of time, one arrives at the conclusion that some degree of the insanity which was present in his branch of the 65 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Shirleys, and was pled by his brothers in an effort to save him at his trial, was at the root of the evil, and that he was little other than a dangerous lunatic. Whatever balance there might have been originally between reason and unreason was de- stroyed by the fact that, according to the practice of the day. Earl Ferrers was a hard drinker. He had married a pretty, simple girl without for- tune, but not much beneath him in rank, since she was the sister of a squire and baronet. Sir William Meredith. It seems that poor Countess Ferrers, who had rashly undertaken a desperate venture, enticed to it by girlish infatuation over the wreck of a young nobleman, and by the gratification to girlish vanity in being entitled to wear such a coronet as that which graced the head of Sehna Countess of Huntingdon and other grand dames, alas ! found herself totally unable to check the downward path of her lord. In fact. Lord Ferrers' excesses had increased in recklessness and violence. They were, in spite of a certain fitful, passionate fondness for his wife, directed against her till she lived in terror of her life. His constant taunt to her was that he was drunk when she was first introduced to him, and that she and her relatives kept him in a constant state of intoxication, till the marriage was accomplished. 66 THE SHIRLEY TRAGEDY Lady Ferrers was childless, and partly to punish her for that and for her weak tears and complaints and her frightened shrinking from him, partly because of the revival of an old illicit attachment to a poor woman who had lived with him and borne him children before his marriage, he took this woman again as his mistress, openly flaunting his infidelity in the face of his wife. He was seldom sober, would beat the unfortunate Countess when the fancy took him, always carried pistols about his person and brought them to bed with him, threatening to kill his Countess before morning. And he was not unlikely to fulfil the threat, parti- cularly as it was said that he had cruelly struck a groom till the lad died from the consequences. It was high time that Lady Ferrers' relations and friends should interfere for her protection, and they did it to such purpose that, by an Act of the two Houses of Parliament, with the consent of the King, the Countess was granted a separation from the Earl, who was bound over by the House of Lords to keep the peace and to furnish his wife with a provision for her maintenance in the style of her rank. That the Acts might take effect, receivers were appointed to draw his Lordship's rents, and though he was furious at the whole arrangement, he so far agreed to it that he appointed as one of the :;67 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON receivers his land-steward, Mr. Johnson, who resided at a farm-house half-a-mile distant from Stanton. This Johnson had been brought up from boyhood in the Shirley family, and its head, it might have been supposed, would have had some friendly associations with the steward, but the circum- stance that he had sent Lady Ferrers a remittance of fifty pounds without his Lordship's knowledge awoke in him one of the paroxysms of rage which had grown upon him till they completely mastered him. Lord Ferrers required Johnson's attendance at Stanton at three o'clock on an afternoon in January, 1760. The master of the house in which riot and disorder had long reigned, found no difficulty in sending the men-servants out of the way, thus leaving only women-servants within call. On Johnson's arrival, in the gloom of a winter afternoon, the Earl locked the door of the room and commanded his steward to sign a paper confessing that he was a villain. The unhappy man refused, when Ferrers ordered him to kneel. Johnson compHed, possibly regarding the scene as a fantastic pantomime, and seeking to appease his master by apparent submission in one of the fits of passion to which the steward, who had known 6S A GRUESOME CRIME the Earl from his youth, must have been well accustomed. The women-servants were more suspicious, and apprehended something beyond the bounds of Ferrers' wonted violence, because of the cunning with which he had planned the interview and provided against interruption. These maid- servants, watching and listening, heard their master shout, " Down on your other knee. De- clare that you have acted against Lord Ferrers. Your time is come — you must die." Then the crack of a pistol-shot followed. On the alarmed women rushing to the spot, the Earl unlocked the door and made no objection to assistance being procured in the shape of the nearest doctor, and of the daughter of poor Johnson, who was desperately wounded in the side. But, as night and darkness came on, the drink to which the murderer had recourse still further excited him. He returned again and again to the room, loaded the dying man with abuse, and was with difficulty kept from striking him and from tearing off his bandages. The last outrage was to tweak him by the wig. The doctor was forced to remove his patient in the middle of the night to his own house, where he died in the course of a few hours. When told of the death, Lord 6— (»3«»i THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Ferrers declared that he gloried in the deed he had committed. The crime was so atrociously unprovoked, cold- blooded, and done in the face of day, that no rank, and not even the well-founded defence of craziness, could shield the impenitent perpetrator. The law was not to be so openly defied. Lord Ferrers was arrested without making any resistance, though he was armed with several pistols and a dagger. He was removed from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Leicester Gaol, and from Leicester Gaol in the course of a fortnight to the Tower of London. With the curious, punctilious deference to his class which belonged to the time, he was allowed, while securely guarded on his journey, to travel in his own landau, drawn by six horses, he himself wearing a jockey's jacket, cap and boots. Lord Ferrers was first taken before the House of Lords, when the report of the Coroner's inquest on Johnson was read, and the Earl was escorted by Black Rod to the Tower, where he lay for two months before his trial came on. All through Ferrers' imprisonment, both before and after his trial, his kinswoman. Lady Hunting- don, visited him constantly with his consent, though he probably guessed that it was in conse- quence of her representations that the Governor of^the Tower lessened the prisoner's allowance of 70 A HARDENED PRISONER] wine, and after he was condemned, withdrew the playing-cards with which he had solaced himself. But Ferrers not only continued to receive Lady Huntingdon ; he even sent for her^ " for the sake of company," he said. But he paid no heed to her efforts to bring him to a better frame of mind. According to Horace Walpole, Lord Ferrers was at least " not mad enough to listen to my lady's sermons." In her despair on his account, she persuaded him to allow Whiteiield to visit him twice. But, thought he Earl behaved to the Methodist preacher with the utmost politeness, as if he had taken a leaf from Lord Chesterfield's and Francis Earl of Huntingdon's book, he was unmoved by the voice which swayed multitudes. And the public prayers which Whiteiield put up for the transgressor, in the Methodist fashion of the day, were in human judgment unanswered. Horace Walpole called Whiteiield an 'impertinent fellow," because the preacher, in his free, fearless way, stated the transparent fact that his Lordship's heart was as hard as a stone. The Earl complained that his cousin, Lady Huntingdon, would provoke a saint, but he had her admitted to him to the last, after he had refused to see his nearer relations, and he yielded to her persuasions, in more than one instance, when he 71 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON was bent upon conduct still more defiant than that he succeeded in committing. Lord Ferrers' trial took place on the 16th of April, 1760, and lasted three days. It was held in Westminster Hall, and was attended by various members of the Royal Family, by a crowd of peers and peeresses, and by numbers of people of every degree who could, by hook or by crook, obtain admittance. Horace Walpole was there, dropping his heart- less, caustic remarks into the ears of the dying beauty. Lady Coventry, one of the famous Gunnings, who sat next to him. He was greatly entertained with the fine show of the young peers in their new and splendid robes, and he was diverted by the pride of others, among them Francis Earl of Huntingdon (come to give his vote for or against his mother's cousin and early playmate). These peers, of whom Lord Hunting- don was one, preferred the ragged robes which testified to the antiquity of their titles, for it was said some of the robes had been worn at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. Charles Wesley was present, with George Whitefield and his wife, interested in the behalf of their Countess. Lord Ferrers refused to plead guilty, but was induced, much against his will, to consent to the 72 SENTENCE OF DEATH plea of family insanity, to which his brothers came forward and gave testimony. But the coolness of the prisoner, and the apparent rationality with which he could speak and write when his fits of drink and passion did not overcome him, contradicted the only evidence which could be brought forward in his defence. Ferrers was condemned to be hanged at Tyburn, the sentence being pronounced by the Earl of Nottingham, who acted as High Steward. Then for an instant the prisoner made an effort to save himself — his voice was heard asking his brother peers to recommend him to mercy. But the act for which he suffered was too flagrant and horrible, the verdict was too unanimous to admit of its being set aside by the utmost exertions on the part of the Earl's family and friends. During the three weeks granted before the execution took place, three different petitions were presented to the old King, George H. One from the doomed man's mother, another from the remaining members of his family, and a third from the Lord Keeper. The King could not grant them. Throughout these last weeks Lord Ferrers remained unchanged — calm, scornful and stoHd. His cousin. Lady Huntingdon, and his brother- in-law, Sir Wilham Meredith, those who knew him 73 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON best, had the idea that his highly-strung, sorely shattered nerves would give way in the end, as they had collapsed more than once before in the course of his hfe, but it was not so. He is said to have made two requests, that in consideration of his rank he should be beheaded and not hung, and that not at Tyburn, but on the spot where his ancestor, Robert Devereux Earl of Essex, perished. But high treason is counted one thing, and common vulgar murder another. The second petition, that he should be hanged with a silken rope, is said to have been complied with. Lord Ferrers concluded his requests by begging Lord Cornwallis, the Governor of the Tower, to pay no heed to the wishes of his family, with regard to him, as he thought them very absurd. Earl Ferrers had formed the wild purpose of taking leave of his children on the scaffold, and of improving the occasion by reading to them, and to the assembled crowd, a paper he had drawn up against his wife's family, and against the House of Lords, for granting the separation between husband and wife. (Lady Ferrers does not seem to have made any attempt to see her husband for the last time, to exchange forgivenesses with him, and to bid him farewell). Lady Huntingdon got Ferrers to give up his 74 THE EXECUTION intention, and, though she was rigid in opposing his desire that the Governor might permit him to see the miserable woman who had been his mistress, the Countess herself, on the day before his death, took the four poor girls who were his children to his apartments in the Tower, where he parted from them, seemingly with little feeling. Before going to bed on that last night he had " Hamlet " read to him by a keeper. On the day of his execution, the 5th of May, he dressed in the suit he had worn at his wedding, " of a hght colour embroidered in silver," saying in explanation that he thought this at least as good an occasion for putting the clothes on as that for which they were made. He paid his bills with punctuality and unconcern. His last act was to correct some verses which he had written while in the Tower. In the lines he declared him- self a questioner and a doubter of what was true in life and death. At nine the Sheriffs of London and of Middlesex arrived at the gates of the Tower to claim his body. His fantastic haughtiness reasserted itself in requesting that he might go to the gallows in his landau with the six horses, instead of in a mourning coach, and his wish was granted. If it was any gratification to him, and one cannot help thinking that it must have been, the pomp 75 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON of that dismal procession was as striking as was its lamentable sadness. It could hardly have been outdone by all the ghastly cavalcades which have traversed similar routes. When the pageant started it consisted of constables, horse and foot, soldiers, the Sheriff who did not ride with him in his chariot and six, the horses dressed with ribbons, the central landau with its occupants guarded on each side by soldiers, the empty chariot and six of the Sheriff who rode with Lord Ferrers, a mourning coach with his friends, and a hearse and six to convey the corpse to Surgeons' Hall. The procession took nearly three hours to reach its destination. Lord Ferrers continuing quite composed and behaving with great courtesy to all the officials with whom he came into contact. He wished the journey over, and said the details and the tremendous crowd through which the cortege passed were worse than death itself. But he excused the morbid curiosity which brought the concourse as to a gala show by the ironical observa- tion that they had never seen a lord hanged before, and perhaps would never see another. He ex- pressed sympathy with one of the dragoons who was thrown from his horse, and trusted there would be no death that day save his. The Chaplain endeavoured to engage Lord Ferrers in a profitable conversation, and sought 76 SCENE ON THE SCAFFOLD to ascertain what were his Lordship's reUgious opinions — a proceeding which he resented some- what, and Uttle was got from him, except that he believed there was a God, the Maker of all things. When the Chaplain, in what sounds like an apology, reminded Lord Ferrers that a prayer was usual at an execution, and asked his consent to say the Lord's Prayer, he answered that he had always thought that a good prayer, and the Chaplain might use it if he pleased. The scaffold had been hung with black at the expense of Lord Ferrers' relations. The only emotion he showed on mounting it was a movement of distaste at the sight of the gallows. He was pinioned with a black sash. At first he had objected to having his hands tied or his face covered, but he submitted when the necessity was represented to him. He knelt at the repeating of the Lord's Prayer, and, before rising, said with solemn emphasis, " Oh God, forgive me all my errors. Pardon all my sin." In a few seconds he was dead. Horace Walpole, having stigmatised in no measured terms " the horrid lunatic," was con- strained to add that in the matter in which he met his death he shamed heroes. The light-minded gossip wound up with some- thing like a congratulation : " The Methodists 77 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON have nothing to brag of in his conversion . . . though Whitefield prayed for him and preached about him. I have not heard that Lady Fanny (Lady Fanny Shirley, Lord Ferrers' aunt) dabbled with his soul." There was no foundation for the tradition, which long survived in the mouths of the sensation-loving public, that Lord Ferrers on the scaffold cursed his wife for her share in his death, and prophesied that she would die by fire. The legend went on to tell that she lived for many years in dread of the fulfilment of the prophecy which proved true in the end. By an accident which befell her, she spent a night in a house which was partially burned down, the fire destroying the room in which she had slept, and in which she perished. 78 CHAPTER VI Lady Huntingdon's Friends — Sarah Duchess of Marlborough — Two of her Letters — Doctor Young's " Narcissa " — The Chesterfield Family — The Earl and Countess — Lord Chesterfield's Sister. Lady Gertrude Hotham — Lord Chesterfield's Winning Manners — His " Leap in the Dark " — Triumphant Deaths of Miss Hotham and her Mother — Friends among the Wives of her Clergymen, Mrs. Venn, Fletcher of Madeley's Wife — The Peculiarities of the Wives of John Wesley and Whitefield — Lady Huntingdon's Affection for Mrs. Charles Wesley — Nursing her through Smallpox — Lady Hunting- don's Contemporary, " Grace Murray " — Her Last Meeting with John Wesley — The Humourist Berridge of Everton among Lady Huntingdon's Men Friends. In Lady Huntingdon's youth she numbered among her friends that most masterful of dames, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, Queen Anne's saucy Mrs. Freeman, the beautiful vixen who cut off her chestnut curls in order to spite her lord and master and found them later in the cabinet in which he had kept his treasures ; the same Sarah, the dauntless invalid who told her doctor that she would not put on a blister, and she would not die, the vindictive grannie who had the pictured face of her grand-daughter daubed black that it might correspond with the colour of her heart. Even she was susceptible to Countess Selina's influence. Two letters from the great Sarah, wonderfully sensible and modest, yet characteristic withal, are still in existence. In these she records her regard for Lady Huntingdon, and her willingness to accompany her to hear Whitefield and to derive 79 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON the good which the Duchess believed she got from his preaching. " My dear Lady Huntingdon is always so very good to me, and I really do feel so very sensibly all your kindness and attention, that I must accept your very obhging invitation to accompany you to hear Mr. Whitefield, though I am still suffering from the effects of a severe cold. Your concern for my improvement and religious knowledge is very obhging, and I do hope that I shall be the better for all your excellent advice. " God knows we all need mending, and none more than myself. I have lived to see great changes in the world, — have acted a conspicuous part myself — and now hope in my old days to obtain mercy from God, as I never expect any at the hands of my fellow-creatures. " The Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Townshend and Lady Cobham were exceedingly pleased with many observations in Mr. Whitefield's sermon at St. Sepulchre's Church, which has made me lament ever since that I did not hear it. It might have been the means of doing me some good, for good, alas ! I do want ; but where among the corrupt sons and daughters of Adam am I to find it ? " Your ladyship must direct me. You are all goodness and kindness, and I often wish I had a portion of it. Women of wit, beauty and quality cannot bear too many humiliating truths — they shock our pride — but we must die, we must converse with earth and worms. " Pray do me the favour to present my humble service to your excellent spouse — a more amiable 80 A DUCHESS'S CONFESSIONS man I do not know than Lord Huntingdon. And believe me, " My dear Madam, " Your most faithful and most humble servant, "S. Marlborough." The second letter is as follows : — " Your letter, my dear Madam, was very acceptable. Many thanks to Lady Fanny for her good wishes, being a communication from her and my dear good Lady Huntingdon ; they are always welcome and always in every particular to my satisfaction. I have no comfort in my own family, therefore must look for that pleasure and gratification which others can impart. " I hope you will shortly come and see me and give me more of your company than I have had latterly. In truth I always feel more happy and more contented after an hour's conversation with you than after a whole week's round of amuse- ments. When alone my reflections and recollec- tions almost kill me, and I am forced to fly to the society of those I detest and abhor. Now there is Lady Frances Saunderson's great rout to-morrow night, all the world will be there, and I must go. I do hate that woman as much as I do a physician, but I must go if for no other purpose than to mortify and spite her. " This is very wicked, I know, but I confess all my little peccadillos to you, for I know your goodness will lead you to be mild and forgiving, and perhaps my wicked heart may get some good from you in the end. 81 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON " Make my kindest respects to Lord Hunting- don. Lady Fanny has my best wishes for the success of her attack on that crooked, perverse, little wretch at Twickenham (Pope). Assure yourself, my dear good Madam, that I am your most faithful and most obliged humble servant, " S. Marlborough." A very different friend of the Countess's in these comparatively early days was young Mrs. Temple, grand- daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and daughter of Lady Elizabeth and Colonel Lee. Lady Elizabeth, on Colonel Lee's death, had married, for the second time, Young, of " Night Thoughts " fame. Lady Huntingdon had met him at the Twickenham villa of her aunt. Lady Fanny Shirley, whose favourite divine he was. Miss Lee, Young's cherished step-daughter, married Mr. Temple, son of the Lord Palmerston of that day. She died of consumption a year after her marriage at Montpellier, to which her sorrowing mother and step-father had taken her in hope of her recovery. She was the Narcissa of the " Night Thoughts." A pathetic episode in connection with her death is recorded in the life of Lady Huntingdon. " As the Doctor (Young) saw her gradually declining he used frequently to walk backwards and forwards in a place called ' The King's S2 THE CHESTERFIELD FAMILY Garden ' to find the most solitary spot where he might show his last token of affection by having her remains as secure as possible from those savages who would have denied her Christian burial ; for at that time an Englishman in France was looked on as a heretic and infidel or a devil. The under-gardener, being bribed, pointed out the most solitary place, dug the grave and let him bury his beloved daughter. The man, through a private door, admitted the Doctor at midnight, bringing his daughter wrapped in a sheet upon his shoulders, and laid her in the hole. He sat down and shed a flood of tears over the remains of his dear Narcissa. " With pious sacrilege a grave I stole," he writes in his " Night Thoughts." With the entire Chesterfield family Lady Huntingdon was intimate for the greater part of her hfe. Lord Chesterfield's wife and sister were among the Countess's dearest friends. Unhke the husband and brother, they held the faith and were women of high character and of decided benevolence and piety, working willingly in con- nection with Lady Huntingdon, and contributing liberally to Trevecca College, and other philanthropic institutions. Lady Chesterfield was the daughter of George I 83 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON and the Duchess of Kendal, and had been created in her own right Countess of Walsingham and Baroness of Aldburgh. She was a cultivated and accomplished woman in her generation. She was, of course, a kinswoman of George III, and a persona grata at Court, filling a high position honourably and blamelessly. Unequally yoked in marriage, while faithfully discharging a wife's duties, she could only count on receiving from Lord Chesterfield perfectly well-bred, courteous pohteness. An anecdote exists which shows that his lord- ship's complaisance extended to selecting and procuring from the Continent at some trouble and expense the dress which Lady Chesterfield wore on her last appearance at Court — a tasteful, suitable gown of sober brown, " relieved by silver flowers thrown up on the brocade." It attracted the attention of George III, who, with his usual brusqueness and inconsequence, hailed his cousin two or three times removed : "I know who chose that gown for you — Mr. Whitefield ; and I hear you have attended on him this year-and-a-half." Her candid answer was, " Yes, I have, and hke him very well." Lord Chesterfield's lack of heart and truth, in the middle of his exquisite affectation, seems neither to have alienated his friends' affection nor to have S4 "A LEAP IN THE DARK" altogether extinguished the trust that he might yet change his views. His influence over such women as Lady Huntingdon and his wife resembled that won by the royal reprobate Charles II over his good citizens of London, sheerly through the grace and pleasantness of his perennial good-temper. In writing of Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Whitefield, in the vain hope of his final conversion, the Countess refers to the man so unlike herself as " dear Lord Chesterfield." As for the Countess of Chesterfield, she refused to quit for a moment his lordship's melancholy death-bed, which the dying man designated " A leap in the dark." In her last desperate effort, she is said to have sent for Rowland Hill, to whom Lord Chesterfield might listen, because Hill was Sir Rowland Hill's son, in addition to being a Methodist divine and a famous preacher. It need not be said the sick man refused to comply with his wife's request, and would neither see nor hear the ghostly counsellor. Lord Chesterfield's sister, Lady Gertrude Hotham, was a still dearer friend of Lady Huntingdon's, one in relation to whose family the Countess had her last hold on her son, the Earl, and a faint trust, on the verge of extinction, that he might yet be reclaimed from the error of his opinions as a noto- rious free-thinker. Lady Gertrude's son, Sir 85 7— ( 30 ) THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Charles Hotham, an amiable, well-disposed young man, though not then taking a definite side on the religious question, which bulked largely — even among the young and gay in the exclusive circles of the day — was for a time Lord Huntingdon's chosen companion. Nay, fashionable rumour had it that the Earl admired greatly, and was fast becoming attached to, one of Sir Charles's sisters, the special friend of Lord Huntingdon's own sister. Lady Selina Hastings, in spite of the fact that both young girls were true daughters of their mothers and ardent Methodists. Was human love to be the divine instrument for breaking down the hard, cold barrier which his worship of reason had erected between mother and son ? It was so in the case of Sir Charles Hotham. It failed when it had to do with Lord Huntingdon. His friend's sister gradually declined in health, and died in such a " calm splendour " of faith and hope, that Whitefield, who was present, com- memorated the triumph over death in a funeral sermon which he preached. Shortly after Miss Hotham's death, her brother, Sir Charles, married much to his mother's mind, but in two more years his young wife was attacked by fever and died in the course of a few days. From that time he made an open profession of his 86 WHITEFIELD AND THE PRESBYTERIANS religion, even in the trying atmosphere of a Court, as he had been appointed, through his uncle Lord Chesterfield's influence, a gentleman-of-the-bed- chamber to George III. Sir Charles survived his wife eight years, and died when still in his prime, near Spa, where he had been ordered for his health. The evening after his mother, Lady Gertrude, had received the sad tidings of her son's death, she accidentally set fire to her ruffles when sitting alone reading, and was severely burned about her neck and head. She showed great patience under her sufferings during the fortnight which elapsed before death ended them. With well-nigh her last breath she ejaculated " happy, happy." Lady Huntingdon had many valued friends in Scotland, the Buchan Erskines, the Maxwells, etc., etc., whom she visited, who were ready to welcome Whitefield for her sake. But, though he preached to great crowds and left a deep impression behind him, his Calvinism did not weigh sufficiently with the authorities of the Scotch Church to justify what they regarded as the irregular license of some of his views and actions. In the country where Presbyterianism followed the strict hues laid down by John Knox, the Melvilles, etc., etc., even those who had diverged from the Church of Scotland, led by the famous brothers Ralph and Ebenezer 87 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Erskine, to whom Whitefield went by invitation, could not agree with his opinions on discipline and Church government, and in the end the Erskines withdrew from a proposed alHance with him. Lady Huntingdon's innumerable friends, for she elected to be the friend of everyone who, as she would have quoted, " loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," were the religious leaders of the day, whether Church of England or Noncon- formists, and she was in frequent correspondence with many of them. Naturally for a woman engaged in so much public work. Lady Huntingdon's friends and correspon- dents were largely men. Her women friends were to be found mostly among women of her own class. Circumstances forbade anything else. On inti- mate terms as she was at one time with John Wesley, and always with Whitefield, there is no mention of any deahng with their wives nor indeed with the wives of many clergymen unless where they had intermarried with the upper classes, as happened not infrequently. These alliances or mesalliances, were brought home to the Countess in the case of her two sisters-in-law, Lady Margaret Ingham and Lady Catherine Wheeler, and of Lady Huntingdon's niece and namesake, who became the wife of the Rev. — . Wills. 88 THE COUNTESS & HER PASTORS' WIVES The wives of her friends — the clergymen or pastors, who were in their husband's rank — were not at leisure, and many of them were hardly suited for the intercourse which the husbands enjoyed. These matrons were more or less en- grossed with their family duties and affairs ; often they had not received such an education as would have fitted them to enter the upper ranks, and to appear in them with advantage. Men constantly rise socially, and are often quite equal to the ascent, while they do it and themselves credit in the process. Women, in spite of their power of accommodating themselves to circumstances, accomplish the transfer more rarely than men, and, so far as success is concerned, less effectually. This was still more true a century ago, when the Unes of demarcation between the classes were stronger. There were exceptions to the usually shght relations between Lady Huntingdon and the wives of the clergymen of her connexion. It does not seem to have been altogether so in the case of Mrs. Pentycross, to whom Lady Huntingdon is said to have been partial for her great good- humour as well as for her seriousness of mind, to whom her ladyship on one occasion wrote a very gracious letter, so gracious that it is not without a flavour of a great lady's condescension as well as 89 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON of her dignity, and she accompanied the letter by the considerate gift of a silver teapot. But certainly the barriers of caste and breeding were over-leaped with Mrs. Venn, whose early death was earnestly lamented by the Countess as by her other friends. There was still another lady who could not fail to come under the notice of Lady Huntingdon, and to be regarded by her with lively approval. This was the wife of the much-loved Fletcher of Madeley, who, in addition to his other burdens, took upon him the office of the presi- dency of Lady Huntingdon's College of Trevecca from sheer love of her and the work. He had married a congenial partner, a Miss Bosanquet, whose worldly position and means were the least of her gifts and graces. She worked with him heart and soul, during the not very long time their union lasted, when they made of Madeley Vicarage the refuge of all the weary and heavy-laden, the sick and the sorrowful, the poor and the needy in the parish, so that the memory of their blessed life Ungered for generations, like the crushed sweet- ness of perished flowers, in the place where they had dwelt for a season. In the domestic relations with John Wesley and Whitefield, with whom Lady Huntingdon was long closely allied, there were reasons why the esteem which she entertained for the husbands did not 90 MRS. JOHN WESLEY & MRS. WHITEFIELD extend to the wives. Neither man was happily married, both were unfortunate in their choice of the two widows who became their partners, who might already have had sufficient experience of matrimony to know that they were unsuited for it, especially in reference to men who were en- grossed with their Master's work, to which all else, including their wives' claims, must be subordinate. Without being guilty of worse offences, Mrs. John Wesley and Mrs. Whitefield belonged to that troublesome order of women who are full of whims and moods of tempers, discontents and suspicions, such as tend to drive ordinary men, who have not higher things to think of, beside themselves, and to tempt them to pay the women back in their own coin. The wives were jealous because they could never be first with their husbands, but had to wait for the men's notice, and to be set aside and left behind when the Lord's work called. It is not argued that the women had no provoca- tion, only that they should have counted the cost before they married such men. John Wesley, in his goodness, was a man of adamant alike to himself and to all connected with him. Whitefield, much more impressionable, thought nothing of making four voyages to Georgia after the date of his marriage, in none of which did Mrs. Whitefield 91 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON accompany him. His absences lasted for years at a time, and every penny he collected went to his orphanage. Mrs. Whitefield showed herself occasionally not incapable of rising to his level. He would call her his " right hand ; " he missed her sorely when she died. He was fond of quoting an anecdote of her. In a brutal crowd, when even his heart began to faint, and he was on the point of being stoned, Mrs. Whitefield standing behind him plucked him by the cloak and charged him : " George, play the man for your God," when his waning courage returned in a twinkHng. But, unfortunately, she was not always of this mind, and Whitefield's impulsive generosity was not enough to bridge the gulf between them. And in neither of the two shifting households were there children to serve as a bond which could not be broken. No child was born to John Wesley, and Whitefield's single descendant, the son on whom he formed so many ardent hopes, died in infancy. It was far otherwise in the marriage of Charles Wesley. Mrs. Charles Wesley, unlike her sister- in-law, was a happy wife and mother. She was Sarah Gwynne, a daughter of Gwynne of Garth, a squire of long descent and considerable property in Brecknockshire. . In her own person she was 92 ^x-ww^^"^ ■::.-i».:;i:^s^ CHARLES WESLEY MRS. CHARLES WESLEY not only a good woman, she was a well-bred and amiable lady. Lady Huntingdon and she were intimate and attached friends from the beginning of their acquaintance. About 1752, Charles Wesley was settled, so far as he was suffered to be settled, with his wife and child in a house in Bristol, and in Bristol was one of the Countess's tabernacles. Further, in connection with its Hot Wells, the town stood next to Bath in the estimation of the real or fancied invalids of the time, to whom mineral waters offered a panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Lady Huntingdon, like the rest of her generation, with more reason than most of the visitors in her indifferent and often failing health, was after her widowhood a frequent resident at one or other of these watering-places. When she had the additional attraction of one of her chapels to superintend, her presence for longer or shorter intervals could be still more counted upon. But, apart from either benefit to her health or advantage to her chapel, there were imperative reasons for her journeying to Bristol at this time. The Wesley family were in distressing circum- stances, and she could do nothing else than hasten to their assistance and do her best to relieve them at whatever risk or discomfort to herself. 93 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON John Wesley's iron constitution had broken down for a time under the tremendous strain put upon it. He was at Lewisham, sent there by his doctors to the quaint house with the semblance of rams' horns as ornaments on each side of the gate. Rest and refreshment from the country air of the village were thought his last chance for recovery. He was so ill that his death was freely anticipated, and his brother Charles was summoned from Bristol to take the ordering of the churches, and to receive John's last instructions. As if this were not calamity enough to his grow- ing societies and the multitude looking to him for heavenly guidance, and to the family of which he was the ostensible head, down in Bristol Mrs. Charles Wesley was stricken with smallpox, and lay in great suffering and danger for many days, while her husband could not come to her without deserting his post and abandoning his public duties. One can imagine how the word " Smallpox " sounded in Lady Huntingdon's ears, how it re- called her two fine boys, George and Ferdinando, cut down in their fresh, blooming youth, what had been their pleasant comeUness rendered loathsome to look upon, and dying within little more than a day of each other. But their mother did not hesitate a moment. She set out instantly from Bath, where she had been 94 A BRAVE NURSE staying, when she heard the grievous news; one can guess, forbidding her young daughter, Lady Selina, to accompany her or follow her, she made her way to the infected house in Bristol, where she could be a pillar of strength to the scared inmates, assuming the responsibility of chief nurse, so that everything which could be done was tried for the patient, cheering and strengthening her by Lady Huntingdon's unshaken faith in the Father of us all doing His best for His helpless creatures. She communicated daily bulletins to the husband in the anguish of his absence and suspense. She did more ; she sent for Whitefield and commissioned him to go to London and reheve Charles Wesley, so that he might come to Bristol once again and see his wife — before, what seemed more than probable, she should be called from his side — while this Hfe lasted. There had been disputes, rivalry, and something of hostihty between Whitefield and the WWeys, upholding as they did different conceptions of the glory and the will of the same divine Master. But there could be no abiding gall in these good and honest hearts. What were the differences of interpretation which had arisen between them, in one of these seasons of adversity for which brothers are born, when humanity thinks only of what alleviation it can afford ? 95 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Whitefield put all his big heart into his mission — not the less so that between two of the flying visits which his presence in London enabled Charles Wesley to pay to Bristol, Wesley's first-born child, a promising little boy of not yet two years, sick- ened of the same disease under which his mother appeared to be lying in extremity, and died — as Baby John Whitefield had died — in the absence of his father^ and in Wesley's case he had not even the comfort of helping to lay his son with words of prayer in the churchyard which is God's Garden. Whitefield, in the middle of his press of work, penned letter after letter of tender sympathy to his fellow-sufferer : "I cannot remember anything now but dear Mrs. Wesley," Whitefield wrote to Charles Wesley in his warm friendliness. " Night and day you are remembered by me." At last Lady Huntingdon had the joy of com- municating the glad intelligence, after Mrs. Charles Wesley had lain twenty-two days in great danger, that the peril was past, and there was every prospect of the loved and loving wife's recovery. Whitefield immediately returned a public thanks- giving in his tabernacle for the mercy which had been shown his friends. Mrs. Charles Wesley was not only restored to health, she lived a long life, survived her husband, 96 GRACE MURRAY and died at the great age of ninety-six, thirty-one years after her old friend Lady Huntingdon had passed away. Man proposes but God disposes. Surely John Wesley's experience of matrimony would have been very different had he married the gifted woman his heart desired. She was another widow, but a widow with qualities widely removed from those of the lady who became Mrs. John Wesley. Lady Huntingdon could only have been ac- quainted with Grace Murray — as she was best known — when she was the wife, not of John Wesley, alas ! but of another of the Countess's friends, Mr. Bennett, of Derbyshire. Bennett had early cast in his lot with the Oxford reformers. He had shown a keen personal interest in their work, had been invited by Lady Hunting- don to pay a visit to Donnington Park, and had been urged by her to become one of the army of preachers — in accordance with his views and his powers, instead of carrying his abilities and his superior education into another profession. Finally she introduced him to John Wesley and to White- field. Bennett started work under the first, though his leanings were to Whitefield and Cal- vinism. But it was not till the Bennetts — both husband and wife — had broken off from 97 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON Wesley and joined the Calvinistic Methodists that they came repeatedly into the old famihar neighbourhood of Donnington Park. Grace Murray had begun hfe as Grace Norman. She was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1715, and was the daughter of parents, members of the Church of England, in affluent circumstances, and belonging to an upper class of society. They were able to give their children the best education of the time, and to introduce them into what were reckoned the polite circles of the day. A precocious, susceptible child, even as she was an animated, sympathetic woman, little Grace seems to have undergone religious experiences and worldly reactions at an extraordinarily early age. The reactionary forces reached their height in her early girlhood, when she developed a passion for dancing which she declared " had nearly cost her her life " (her spiritual life). The rebound from this very volatile mood of mind came soon, and with such violence, that though she went through other reactions from Methodism, she would never again indulge in the amusement. While still Grace Norman, she became so con- vinced a young Methodist that her father, who held other opinions, told her he could not permit her to remain a member of his household unless she 98 GRACE MURRAY'S CONVERSION promised not to influence her brothers in the rehgious controversies which were raging through- out the country. She could not give the promise, therefore while still a girl not out of her teens she had to leave her family, and live in lodgings not far from her home, doubtless that the parental eye might still be upon her, while her firmness was subjected to the severe test imposed upon it. The narrative of this experience impHes either that her father, who had by no means cast her off, supplied her with an allowance, or that she was already in possession of an independent income from other sources. She was in the habit of going home at intervals for part of the day, but had always to go back to her lodgings before evening. In recalling the occurrence, she remarks on the pain and mortifica- tion with which she got up to quit the rest of the family like somebody in disgrace paying a penalty. The experiment surely had the effect the astute father desired. At least, by the time Grace at twenty-one years of age married, with her parents' consent, a sailor named Murray, she had re-entered society, " returned to the world," in the accepted phrase, in which her intelHgence, sprightUness and musical gifts, in the shape of an exceedingly melodious voice, rendered her a favourite. Of the great attachment of her husband there 99 THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON could not be two thoughts ; his existence when on shore seemed to be bound up in hers, while she, in the thoughtlessness of the moment, in the spoiUng of her naturally fine disposition caused by the flattering preference given her by the giddy, unreflecting company she frequented, returned the affection by little more than the obliging complaisance of a petted, gay young wife. Grace was reminded of her earlier higher aspira- tions by the time she had become a mother, when an illness of Mr. Murray's called her to Portsmouth, where she and her child of fourteen months joined him and stayed with him for six weeks. " We boarded with a widow lady who had two daughters," she wrote afterwards. " Thrice every day she passed by my room with her books under her arm and her daughters with her to retire into her room for prayers. This struck me in such a manner that I wished to do as she did. Oh ! the goodness of God ; it shamed me that I should have had to be brought thither to learn to pray. Yes, I believe I began to pray in the spirit in that house. The Lord fastened something in my mind there which I could never shake off." After she went to London with her husband, her mind was further wrought on. " When we re- turned to London," she noted, " all the place rang with the fame of Mr. Whitefield, who had 100 A FIELD-PREACHER introduced the practice of field-preaching. * Poor gentleman ! he is out of his mind,' was the general comment. He continued to blow the Gospel trumpet all over London. I wished to hear him, but Mr. Murray would not consent." When her husband went to sea again, her child sickened and died. " Near to the end," was the mother's description of the scene, " I, having a book of prayer, sought a prayer in it for a departing soul. I was constrained to kneel down and give up the soul of my child into the hands of God. " This amazed my sister. . . . After the funeral I was brought into such lowness of spirits I could rest nowhere. ... I ran to my sister saying, ' I do not know what is the matter with me, but I think it is my soul.' " * Your soul ! ' she repHed, * you are good enough for yourself and me too.* " A young person in our neighbourhood, having heard of my distress, sent me word she was going to Blackheath to hear Mr. Whitefield, and would be glad of my company. Accordingly I went with her, and before we reached the place heard the people singing hymns. The very sound set all my passions afloat, which showed how the affections may be moved while the understanding is dark." The spot where Whitefield stood when he spoke 101 8— (a3