God only could bestow. I do not say this will involve the justice of the Almighty. He has a right to do what He will with His own. I am, however, inclined to think that the effects which result from superior intellect when viewed in the abstract, are confined to the present state, and that moral attainments, estimated apart from the various degrees of mental power, or means of exercising them, will alone have an influence upon the degrees of felicity in another world.

'That God may give you health and happiness in time, is the second wish of my heart for you; my first is, that you may be prepared for the felicities of eternity. I remain, with love to Dr. and Mrs. Clarke,

'Your sincere friend,

'SAML. DREW.'

Another letter from Mr. Drew, in the year following, shows that her mind-notwithstanding many earthly attractions which surrounded her at this time—was sustained in the same elevated range of thought:

'St. Austell, Cornwall, April 22nd, 1816.

'MY DEAR FRIEND, 'You ask what my opinion is of innate ideas. I am much inclined to favour Locke's opinion, that they are not innate, but that we derive them all from the two sources of sensation and reflection; I scarcely see how the strong reasonings of that philosopher can be overturned. But, at the same time, I am fully convinced that we must have certain innate principles by which these ideas can be distinguished one from another. Without some innate principles I do not see how ideas could be known or discriminated; and if this were admitted, they could be to us of no service.

'On the happiness of glorified spirits I have no doubt that your views are correct so far as they go, but I am inclined to think that they might be carried to a much greater extent. Indeed, it is totally impossible that we can form accurate conceptions in all their extent of the felicities of heaven, while we allow that sensation and reflection are the only sources of our ideas. Nothing that is in heaven can be an object of sense, and no revelation can impart to us ideas that are adequate, only through the medium of analogy, and even here similitude in representation can never imply identity in fact. Harps, gold, precious stones, and a sea of glass will furnish magnificent ideas. But we must degrade the felicities of heaven if we imagine that these similitudes can actually resemble realities. I have no more conception that material harps are in heaven than I have an expectation of finding a drum or fiddle there.

'Refined in the alembic of death, and the grand process which is the consequence of it, the body no doubt will receive a new organization which will be adapted to the region which it shall be destined to inherit. It will be prepared for its immortal partner, the powers and faculties of which may ripen in its disembodied state, to give completion to the mutual accommodation. It is highly probable that we have latent faculties now in a state of embryo in the soul, which cannot put forth their energies until this gross impediment of clay be removed, when they will evolve themselves and ripen for the grand result. Instead of five senses, we may have six, seven, eight, or twelve. Through those unknown senses we may be able to comprehend realities of which we can now scarcely form any rational conjecture. But these things we must die to know. Let us then, my friend, seek after those moral qualifications without which the scene will become reversed, and all those inlets of pleasure shall be turned into mediums of pain. No doubt that a perpetual augmentation of knowledge will continue for ever, which to the righteous will enhance their felicity, and to the wicked their torment for ever.

'Believe me to be, my dear friend, yours sincerely,

'SAML. DREW.'

She was married in September, 1818, to Mr. Rowley, of Stourport. The following letter gives the first glimpse of the new life:

'MY DEAR ANNA MARIA,

'Millbrook, Sept. 16th, 1818.

'I rejoice in your joy, and thank God that you feel so well satisfied and so happy. Begin your married life in a conscientious devotedness of yourself to God in all religious ordinances, and suffer not bridal pomp, nor the pleasures nor the cares of wedlock, to separate between you and the God of all your mercies, nor interfere to make you careless of any of the means of grace which in His good providence He has put within your reach. To begin well is important it is also comparatively easy; and God's blessing will attend you. Your affectionate mother,

'M. CLARKE.'

The subjoined letter illustrates two strong features of Dr. Clarke's character -his playfulness and his love of little children:

'MY DEAR JAMES AND ANNA,

'Millbrook, Oct. 24th, 1821.

'No doubt you long much to hear of Adam, as you brought him to this place in a bad state of health. Well, he certainly did mend for a time, and thengrew better afterwards; but at last, poor fellow, he got-QUITE WELL! What a disappointment to your medical gentry who would put him in flannel, of which he has as much need as a duck has of a side pocket! Sans badiner, the child is as hearty, as strong, and as healthy as I wish him to be; he is a wise and understanding fellow, and has more piety than most of the big wigs. He will not eat a morsel at table, nor let any one else touch it till grace is said, and at family prayer he summons all together, and if he miss any, calls them by name. He kneels as devoutly as most, and says Amen, with "a laudable voice," when all is done. He is now working under my table, waiting till the letter be written to "Mother," that he may kiss it before it goes. 'Your affectionate father,

A. C.'

An extract from one of Mrs. Clarke's wise letters, foreshadowing probably the ill-health which was to be her daughter's lot for many future years, will close the notice of this earliest and, in some respects, brightest period of her life:

'Millbrook, November 14th, 1822.

'Every enemy must be resisted, if we would overcome it. Dejection of mind is the enemy you should contend with. It is the enemy of your health; it is the enemy of your family; for whatever injures you, hurts them; insomuch as it incapacitates you from giving all attention to them. Their little joys and sorrow's call for your constant participation; and how can you mind those if your own spirit is swallowed up of dejection? If you have not a moderate degree of cheerfulness, even these duties will fret upon your spirit, and hurt your health, instead of being a pleasant gratification to you. Do endeavour, my dear girl, at least not to give way to it. Enter, as far as you have strength, into all your family concerns: keep your attention much engaged with things that will not be burdensome to it. Let your dear little children prattle away your cares, and permit yourself to be diverted by them. Enter into all their concerns; play with them; tell them tales; talk with them in their own way; walk with them, and run too, if you are able: at any rate, condescend to be amused by them, and let their -liveliness swallow up your dolour; and if the oppression be lessened upon your spirits, all then will be clear again. If I advise well, then take my advice. If you cannot take it, yet bear with it; and feel that it is well meant.'

But the Divine life had been inwrought and inworking during the whole of her thoughtful girlhood, until it culminated, at about her nineteenth year, in what she recognized as conversion. But bright as was the vision of love to her soul at this crisis of her spiritual growth, there needed the travail

of many years of bodily and mental suffering to fill adequately so rich a nature as hers with the manifestation of God.

The gladness of youth has passed away, and is succeeded by much physical prostration and mental trial. There is only one record of a dangerous illness at this period probably while she was on a visit to her parents, in a valuable letter from that brother between whom and herself there always existed such tender confidence and love:

'MY DEAR SISTER,

6

Hunmanby, July 30th, 1826.

'You do indeed say truly that I shall rejoice to hear of the almost miracle that has been wrought in your favour in bringing you back from the verge of the grave. That you should ever so far recover as you have done, I must own I had my doubts; but I never mentally gave you up, and I will tell you the reason of my latent confidence: it was because I saw that your afflictions had had such a hallowed effect upon your mind; I saw that you were daily getting more fitted for life, by being more prepared for death, and it seemed to be that solid, settled, heart-felt piety and resignation to the Divine will which is most likely to last onward and to influence to the latest breath. With this before me, I could not give up the hope that God would still spare one who was not only capable of receiving so much good, but also capable of doing so much to others. He has heard the fervent prayers that have been offered up on your behalf, and you, my beloved sister, are still left to be the joy of your family; and may He, Whose you are, still keep around you His everlasting arms, bless you here, and after a long course of holiness and peace, raise you to the life immortal. God grant a brother's prayer, for Christ's sake!

'With the convictions you felt, and the true road you took to have those convictions rightly directed, I think you acted perfectly right in doing as you have done. The strong feelings you have described are not those that may be safely disregarded, and it is indeed an awful thing to call back any of those feelings that have been solemnly sacrificed for the Lord's sake.'

The following wise and cheering letter is from the 'guide, philosopher, and friend' of her youth:

'38, Newgate Street, London,

'December 15th, 1831.

'In taking a survey of life and its vicissitudes, we can hardly avoid concluding that the economy of God, in the moral government of the world, is involved in clouds that nothing but the light of eternity can dispel. A conviction, however, that we see bat in part and know but in part; that causes sometimes appear without their effects, and not unfrequently effects without their causes, will reconcile us to the gloomy dispensations of Divine Providence, by furnishing us with an assurance of another and a better world. In our present state, unmingled gratification cannot be our lot; nor, if it were attainable, would it be congenial to the physical constitution of man, either mental or corporeal. Nature requires a vicissitude of seasons, vegetation and animal nature demand repose, and all our enjoyments derive a more acute relish from occasional interruptions and the reverses to which we are exposed. Nor can we, my friend, on this ground presume to impeach the goodness of God. Were human nature unpolluted by sin, uninterrupted enjoyment might suit its character. This, however, must now be reserved for a state from which moral evil shall be for ever excluded.

'About three weeks since I heard Dr. Clarke preach at City Road, but unfortunately could not come to speak to him. I was pent in a seat by many others, and when liberated he was gone. He looked as well as I have seen him for many years, and preached with all his accustomed energy, range of thought, and acuteness of intellect. But my paper

admonishes me that I have only just room to desire my kind remembrance to Mr. Rowley, and to assure his wife that a letter from her will always be highly acceptable to her sincere friend and old acquaintance, SAML. DREW.'

Her health appears at this period to have improved, and her spirits to have recovered much of their old buoyancy, as she is able once more to enter into the joys and interests of her home, when the greatest sorrow she has ever known falls upon her in the death of her father. The subjoined was his last letter to her and her husband:

'MY VERY DEAR CHILDREN,

'Liverpool, July 21st, 1832.

'I am apparently brought into the very jaws of the cholera. Daniel, the servant, and his wife have both had the disease, but have got through it. Miss S― took it last Sunday, and died in the course of a day; her sister came to nurse her, which she did till she died; then returned home, was seized on the road, put in some carriage and taken home, and was dead before twelve. So I am come almost into the fangs of this ruthless disorder. I am writing also to your mother.

'I am, my very dear children, your ever affectionate father,

A. CLARKE.' There is no need to tell here how Adam Clarke was loved in his own home, perhaps by none more dearly than his second daughter. As usual, there is no record in her own handwriting of the sufferings of her deeply oppressed spirit during the next two years; but her children have heard her tell that for this period her only happy hours were at night, when she could, and did, see and converse with her father in dreams.

The following letters from her widowed mother refer to this painful time:

'O my dear Anna, it is a heavy, heavy stroke! But it is the Lord Who has permitted it: and He does not deal unkindly with His creatures, or they would fail before Him. He will support-He does support, and I have still reason to praise Him. But I cannot write, my hand is unsteady; and my feelings, I dare not trust an attempt at expressing them. Farewell, my dear Anna. Love God, and He will love you and do you good all your life long, and for ever and ever.

'Your afflicted but affectionate mother,

A little later she writes again :

'M. CLARKE.'

'I am not what I was before your dear father's removal, and never shall be such again; my spirit is continually deeply sorrowful. I cannot weep, nor could I from the beginning; I am denied the solace of tears. But these could not help or relieve me. In shallow troubles I can weep, but not in deep or heavy sorrow. I am sadly troubled with nervous headaches: I have not had so much of these for fifty years past as I have had within a few weeks. I have a dimness of sight which I have not heretofore been accustomed to; yet all shall be well in the end!

'I am, my dear Anna Maria, your affectionate mother,

'M. CLARKE.'

The wise and devoted wife of Adam Clarke died on December 20th, 1836. Mrs. Rowley experienced rich strength and liberty and joy after the last voice of parental love had died away from earth. The Methodist church

in Worcester was at this time superintended by the Rev. Joseph Taylor, whose faith and sanctity supplied his flock with overflowing heartfuls of 'living water.'

The following extracts from letters to her youngest sister, Mrs. Richard Smith, of Stoke-Newington, disclose something of her spiritual life at this period :

'MY VERY DEAR MARY,

'Rose Hill, December 19th, 1837.

'You will receive this letter on the first anniversary of our sainted mother's entrance upon her eternal inheritance, and I earnestly wish, my beloved Mary, that we may both get from the ever-accessible Throne a blessing which shall tell upon our experience to the latest period of our own mortal sojourn. This, I think, will be most effectually obtained by a hearty, solemn, unreserved surrender of ourselves, with all the ardour of our affections, and in all our bodily energy, to the working, the will, and the service of God. He has lately been giving me to see, by a light which leads up to the Throne, the possibility of having the Apostle's prayer for the Ephesian Christians answered in my own heart; and I have been enabled to yield myself up unreservedly to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.......'

'Rose Hill Terrace, December 24th, 1839.

'DEAREST MARY, 'Your letter afforded me boundless pleasure; yet while I magnify the grace of our Lord Jesus on behalf of yourself and your servants,* I must press upon you the attainment of a more simple childlike faith in your redeeming Lord.......

'I told you I wanted a blessing on the first anniversary of the day upon which our sainted mother was admitted to "the palace of angels and God." On that day I first felt a trembling confidence in the text: "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified,...by the Spirit of our God." I am at this moment unutterably happy in His love; my soul converses with Him continually; I feel that my spirit, soul, and flesh are solemnly, sweetly, and everlastingly devoted to my Father, my Redeemer, my Sanctifier. I feel Him all-pervading, all-consecrating.......

'Tell the servants to continue in the grace of God, and they shall be happier and happier: their knowledge also shall increase. Tell them simply to ask for, and to follow, the guidance of the Spirit. Tell nurse to believe that God can sanctify wholly. Give my kindest regards to Mr. Aitken; beg him to pray earnestly for me. Give my love to Mr. Moore; beg him to pray that I may stand fast in the Lord.

'I cannot help being struck with that paragraph in Mrs. Cohen's letter.'

Mrs. Cohen, of whom mention is here made, was a lovely young Jewess, the mother, at seventeen summers, of the little girl who afterwards became the Baroness Meyer de Rothschild, and grandmother of the Countess of Rosebery. She was a tenderly attached friend of Mrs. Rowley and Mrs. Smith-a love of nearly half a century's duration, increasing in intensity as the final severance between herself and her latest surviving friend drew near. Mrs. Cohen only outlived her friend six months. To return to the life of forty years ago :

'MY VERY DEAR MARY,

'Rose Hill, April 17th, 1838.

I hope, dearest Mary, that you are going onward. I want you to have

* Mrs. Smith, her elder children, and three or four servants had all been recently converted through the ministry of the Rev. Robert Aitken, father of the Rev. W. H. Hay Aitken.