THAT Mrs. Savage possessed a truly benevolent spirit, and was actuated in works of charity by pure motives, is very evident. Hear her language: “I find the duty of giving, hard to manage aright to keep the eye single. I · find it much easier to draw out the hand to the hungry, than to draw forth the soul in inward compassion. O this inside of duty is that which >I find so very hard."

She did not act upon the antichristian principle, that heaven is to be merited by charitable deeds. She had been better taught. "As the elect of God, holy and beloved," she "put on bowels of mercy," well knowing how peculiarly a kind and benevolent spirit adorns the gospel. Indeed, if heaven is the reward of alms-deeds, how can the poor, who have every thing to receive nothing to bestow-hope for a place in glory? How different the language of revelation!, "By grace are ye saved, through faith: and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of WORKS, lest any man should boast." "Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God

chosen the POOR of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?"

She

There was nothing forced in her beneficence... It was truly divine. "Providence," she remarks, "having placed me at the upper end of the table, I have dealt out with a liberal hand." This part. of her character has been thus recorded by one of her family. "The pleasure with which she gave alms, or did any other good office to the poor, or distressed, is not to be described. willingly employed herself in making garments for their clothing. She always spoke of the plenty of a farm-house as one of the chief advantages of her station, that it allowed her greater opportunities of supplying the wants of the poor, and feeding the hungry, which she always did with her own hands. She was often observed to be most cheerful those days wherein she had been most called on for such charity.

MODERATION too, eminently distinguished this excellent woman. After her marriage she was deprived of those opportunities for public worship which, from infancy, she had enjoyed.

The nearest house of prayer was the parish church, to which, though a dissenter from principle, she, on the Lord's day, statedly resorted, but on sacrament days she usually travelled to

Broad Oak, or Nantwich; the former about eight, the latter about five miles distant.

Without relaxing in her attachment to the mode of worship adopted by dissenters, or at all shrinking from an avowal of it, she embraced every proper opportunity of testifying her respect for the established clergy, and strengthening their hands in their important labours. On one occasion she writes, "Our minister takes a great deal of pains in catechising (Sabbath noon.) I send mine to him for example's sake, for I take the Assembly's Catechism, which they have learned, to be much better than that the Church of England appoints; but I find he joins some useful instructions, and I hope some of them may remain. To-day he exhorted them to the great duty of secret prayer. Lord, set in, and speak to their hearts, that all pious endeavours this way may meet with their desired success."

There are individuals who may be ready to censure her conduct, and almost suspect her sincerity. To such I would present the following extract from her diary. " 1703, Aug. 15.In the morning I had refreshment by reading Psalm cxxxix. concerning God's omniscience"Searched me and known me very comfortable as to the censures of men, and suitable to

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me as to our nonconformity. Some accuse of singularity, and hypocrisy, in my conformity. Thou hast seen and searched, and knowest my heart in that matter that it is right with thee, As my dear father thus expresses it I am censured by some for conforming so far; by others for doing it no further. Which shall I seek to please. Neither. But thee, O heavenly Father, who seest in secret.'-Reading this week in the book of Job, and observing the speeches of his friends, how savourily and piously they speak in some things, and yet how much misapplied to Job; and that though they often said the same to him, yet there was great want of that candour and tenderness which his case required; methinks, I could not but have these reflections. Why should I think it strange that it should be so now? Good men differ in their sentiments, not understanding each other's meaning. I believe there are many wise and holy men of the episcopal, as well as the presbyterian, persuasion. If we could all walk humbly and piously with God according to the light we have, and charitably believe that others do so too, this, I think, would heal us. How comfortable is the appeal-He knoweth the way that I take."

Her

papers contain frequent extracts from

the Book of Common Prayer, with special observation of many admirable petitions, and their suitableness to her own circumstances.

Indeed her religion did not consist in cavilling, nor in a tedious, invective spirit. Divine love having occupied her soul, there was no place for illiberality and prejudice. Though she possessed an ardour of intellect by no means common, it was not exercised in contemning others. Nor did the extensive knowledge she had acquired by reading, and meditation, and a long acquaintance with the world, afford, in her judgment, any reason for despising those who differed from her. She was convinced that"To agree in our sentiments as to every point of doctrine or discipline, or as to the authority or expediency of every rite of worship that may be in question, is absolutely impossible. The best of men differ, their understandings differ; various associations have been accidentally formed, and different principles have been innocently, and perhaps devoutly admitted, which, even in a course of just and sensible reasoning, must necessarily lead to different conclusions."*

On one occasion she manifests her grief at

* Dr. Doddridge's Sermon on Christian candour. His Works, Dr. Williams and Mr. Parsons's edit. vol. iii. p. 266.