Redeemer, which are withheld from millions: and the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Jefus, are fufficient to answer all your neceffities, and to sweeten the bittereft cup which your heavenly Father will ever put into your hand. May He now give you liberty to drink at thefe wells of falvation, till you are filled with confolation and peace in the midst of trouble. He has faid, when thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, and when through the floods, they fhall not overflow thee.. You have need of fuch a word as this, and he knows your need of it, and the time of neceffity is the time when he will be fure to appear in behalf of those who truft him. I bear you and yours upon my heart before him night and day, for I never expect to hear of a distress which fhall call upon me with a louder voice to: pray for the fufferer. I know the Lord hears me for myself, vile and finful as I am, and believe, and am fure, that he will hear me for you also. He is the Friend of the widow, and the Father of the fatherlefs, even God in his holy habitation; in all our afflictions he is afflicted, and chaftens us in mercy. Surely he will fanctify this dispensation to you, do you great and everhaling good by it, make the world appear like duft and vanity in your fight, as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of a better country, where there fhall be no more death, neither forrow nor pain, but God fhall wipe away all tears from your eyes forever. Oh that comfortable word! "I have chofen thee in the furnace of affliction," fo that our very forrows are evidences of our calling, and he chaftens us because we are children. My dear coufin, I commit you to the word of his grace, and to the comforts of his Holy Spirit. Your life is needful for your family, may God in mercy to them prolong it, and may he preferve you from the dangerous effects which a ftroke like this might have upon a frame fo tender as yours.-I grieve with you, I pray for you, could I do more, I would, but God must com fort you. Yours in our dear Lord Jefus, WM. COWPER. In the following year the tender feelings of Cowper were called forth by family affliction, that preffed more immediately on himself; he was hurried to Cambridge by the dangerous illness of his brother, then refiding as a Fellow in Bennet College. An affection truly fraternal had ever fubfifted between the brothers, and the reader will recollect what the Poet has faid in one of his letters concerning their focial intercourfe while he refided at Huntingdon. In the two firft years of his refidence at Olney, he had been repeatedly visited by Mr. John Cowper, and how cordially he returned his kindness, and his attention, the following letter will teftify, which was probably written in the chamber of the invalide, whom the writer fo fervently wished to restore. LETTER XIX. To Mrs. COWPER. March 5, 1770. MY brother continues much as he was. His cafe is a very dangerous one. An impofthume of the liver, attended by an afthma and dropfy. The phyfician has little hope of his recovery, I believe I might fay, none at all; only being a friend, he does not formally give him over by ceafing to vifit him, left it fhould fink his spirits. For my own part I have no expectation of his recovery, except by a signal interpofition of Providence in answer to prayer. His cafe is clearly out of the reach of medicine; but I have feen many a fickness healed, where the danger has been equally threatening, by the only Phyfician of value. I doubt not he will have an intereft in your prayers, as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord incline his ear, and give an answer of peace. -I know it is good to be afflicted. I trust that you have found it fo, and that under the teaching of God's own Spirit we shall both be purified.It is the defire of my foul to feek a better country, where God fhall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people: and where looking back upon the ways by which he has led us, we fhall be filled with everlasting wonder, love and praise. I must add no more, Yours ever, WM. COW PER The ficknefs and death of his learned, pious, and af fectionate brother, made a very strong impreffion on the tender heart and mind of Cowper-an impreffion fo ftrong that it induced him to write a narrative of the remarkable circumstances which occurred at the time. He fent a copy of this narrative to Mr. Newton. The paper is curious in every point of view, and fo likely to 'awaken fentiments of piety in minds where it may be most desirable to have them awakened, that Mr. Newton has thought it his duty to print it. Here it is incumbent on me to introduce a brief account of the interefting perfon, whom the Poet regarded fo tenderly. John Cowper was born in 1737; being defigned for the Church, he was privately educated by a Clergyman, and became eminent for the extent and variety of his erudition in the University of Cambridge. His conduct and fentiments as a minifter of the gospel are copiously displayed by his brother in recording the remarkable close of his life. Bennet College, of which he was a Fellow, was his ufual refidence, and it became the scene of his death on the 20th of March, 1770. Fraternal affection has executed a perfectly juft and graceful defcription of his character, both in profe and verse. I tranfcribe both as highly honourable to these exemplary brethren, who may indeed be faid to have dwelt together in unity. "He was a man (fays the Poet, in speaking of his deceased brother) of a most candid and ingenuous spirit ; his temper remarkably fweet, and in his behaviour to me he had always manifefted an uncommon affection. His outward conduct, fo far as it fell under my notice, or I could learn it by the report of others, was perfectly decent and unblameable. There was nothing vicious in any part of his practice, but being of a studious, thoughtful turn, he placed his chief delight in the acquifition of learning, and made fuch acquifitions in it, that he had but few rivals in that of a claffical kind. He was critically skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages; was beginning to make himself mafter of the Syriac, and perfectly understood the French and Italian, the latter of which he could fpeak fluently. Learned however as he was, he was easy and cheerful in his converfation, and entirely free from the stiffness which is generally contracted by men devoted to fuch pursuits." I had a brother once : Peace to the mem'ry of a man of worth! Was facred, and was honour'd, lov'd and wept Another interefting tribute to his memory will be found in the following letter. LETTER XX. To JOSEPH HILL, Efq. DEAR JOE, May 8, 1770. YOUR letter did not reach me till the last poft, when I had not time to anfwer it. I left Cambridge immediately after my brother's death. I am obliged to you for the particular account you have fent me * * * He to whom I have furrendered myself, and all my concerns, has otherwise appointed, and let his will be done. He gives me much, which he withholds from others, and if he was pleased to withhold all that makes an outward difference between me and the poor mendicant in the ftreet, it would ftill become me to fay, His will be done. It pleased God to cut fhort my brother's connexions and expectations here, yet not without giving him lively and glorious views of a better happiness than any he could propose to himself in such a world as this. Notwithstanding his great learning (for he was one of the chief men in the University in that respect) he was candid and fincere in his inquiries after truth. Though he could not come into my fentiments when I first acquainted him with them, nor in the many conversations which 1 afterward had with him upon the subject, could he be brought to acquiefce in them as fcriptural and true, yet I had no fooner left St. Alban's than he began to study with the deepest attention those points in which we differed, and to furnish himself with the best writers upon them. His mind was kept open to conviction for five |