amidst your fiery trials, I conclude myself your most indebted and affectionate friend and pastor in Christ.

"H. VENN."

In 1767, he was visited with the severest domestic calamity-the loss of his affectionate wife; whose prudence had guided him, whose zeal had animated him, whose sound judgment had directed him, and whose kindness and affection had been his great stay and support, amidst all the trials with which he had been surrounded. A heavier trial than this could not have been laid upon him; and nothing supported him under it, but that perfect confidence in God, and that blessed hope of immortality, which it was his great employment to make known to others.

In a letter written to an intimate friend, he thus expresses his feelings: "I feel my debt to my God enlarged in all his favours towards that other part of myself. I with gratitude adore him, for the precious loan of so dear a child of his, for ten years and four months, to be my wife. I think over, with much delight, the many tokens of love from God during the time of her pilgrimage, and the consolations which refreshed and rejoiced her soul upon the bed of death. I consider her as delivered from the evil to come; and in the possession of all I have been begging of God for her, ever since we knew each other. Every degree of peace, of light, of joy, I feel in Jesus immediately suggests the infinitely exalted sensations of the same kind which enrapture her spirit. And, above all, I have now to praise my Master, that I have an experimental proof that he giveth songs in the night; that when dearest comforts are taken away, the light of his countenance, a little brighter view of his great salvation, a little stronger feeling of the tenderness of his heart, is more than a recompence for every loss we can sustain. I can now say, from proof, 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Mr. Venn was now left with the sole charge of five young children; and immediately began to discharge assiduously the duties which he owed to them, and to supply, if possible, the place of the most prudent and affectionate of mothers. His children could record many instances of the affectionate and judicious manner in which he endeavoured to turn their minds to the contemplation of the highest subjects; according to the method recommended in this work, in his admirable Chapter upon the education of children.

During a thunder-storm, when his children expressed some alarm at the loudness of the thunder and the vividness of the lightning, he took them up with him to a window, where they could observe most distinctly the progress of the storm. He then expatiated to them upon the power of that God, whose will the thunder and the lightning obeyed. He assured them, that the lightning could injure no one, unless with the express permission of that God who directed it.

He taught them to fear his power, and adore his Majesty; and finished his address to them, by kneeling down and solemnly adoring that God, whose perfections they had seen so signally displayed.

At another time, he informed them that in the evening he would take them to one of the most interesting sights in the world. They were anxious to know what it was; but he deferred gratifying their curiosity till he had brought them to the scene itself. He led them to a miserable hovel, whose ruinous walls and broken windows bespoke an extreme degree of poverty and want. "Now," said he, "my dear children, can any one, that lives in such a wretched habitation as this, be happy? Yet this is not all: a poor man lies upon a miserable straw-bed within it, dying of disease, at the age of only nineteen, consumed with constant fever, and afflicted with nine painful ulcers." "How wretched a situation!" they all exclaimed. He then led them into the cottage, and, addressing the poor dying young man said, "Abraham Midwood, I have brought my children here, to shew them that it is possible to be happy in a state of disease and poverty and want; and now, tell them if it is not so." The dying youth, with a sweet smile of benevolence and piety, immediately replied, "Oh yes, Sir; I would not change my state with that of the richest person upon earth, who was destitute of those views which I possess. Blessed be God! I have a good hope, through Christ, of being admitted into those blessed regions where Lazarus now dwells, having long forgotten all his sorrows and miseries. Sir, this is nothing to bear, whilst the presence of God cheers my soul, and whilst I can have access to him, by constant prayer, through faith in Jesus. Indeed, Sir, I am truly happy; and I trust to be happy and blessed through eternity; and I every hour thank God, who has brought me from a state of darkness into his marvellous light, and has given me to enjoy the unsearchable riches of his grace."

In the year 1771, having accepted the rectory of Yelling, in Huntingdonshire, which was offered to him by his friend, the Lord Chief Baron Smythe, who was then one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, he finally quitted Huddersfield. It was not for the sake of greater emolument that he took this step; for the income of Yelling was, at that time, little superior to that of Huddersfield; but it was solely on account of the declining state of his health, which was so exhausted by his continual labours, that he required a long and absolute cessation from all exertion. He had a cough and spitting of blood, besides other symptoms of an approaching consumption. He was only able, in general, to preach once in a fortnight; and the exertion rendered him incapable of rising from his couch for several days after. He was deeply wounded in his feelings at leaving a flock amongst whom he had laboured with so much success. The last two or three months of his residence were peculiarly affecting. At an early hour the church was crowded when he preached, so that vast numbers were compelled to go away. Many came from a considerable distance, to take leave of him, and to express how much they

owed to him for benefits received under his ministry, of which he had not been aware. Mothers held up their children, saying, "There is the man who has been our most faithful minister and our best friend." The whole parish was deeply moved; and when he preached his Farewell Sermon, neither could he himself speak without the strongest emotions, nor the congregation hear him without marks of the deepest interest and affection. Nor did the impression soon wear away: twenty years afterwards, a stranger, passing through that place, and inquiring about their former pastor, heard blessings showered down upon him and his family, with deeply-affected hearts, whilst they deplored their own loss.

When Mr. Venn came to Yelling, his feelings were most deeply excited by the striking contrast between the church at that place and at Huddersfield. Twenty or thirty rustics composed the congregation, who seemed to be utterly void of every just view of religion; but, when his strength was recruited, he laboured in that humble sphere with at least a proportionable degree of success.

Soon after his removal to Yelling, he was married a second time, to Mrs. Smith of Kensington, the daughter of the Rev. James Ascough, Vicar of Highworth, Wilts.

There was an advantage attending the situation of Yelling, which rendered his usefulness in retirement much greater than it would otherwise have been. As Yelling is only twelve miles from Cambridge, many of the younger members of that University, and particularly pious young ministers, were accustomed to repair to him, to be instructed by his counsel, and animated by the views he possessed of the gospel they were to preach.

His powers of conversation were so admirable, his knowledge of religion so extensive, his acquaintance with the world so instructive, and his vigour of mind so great, that, wherever he was, and in whatever company he was placed, every one silently hung upon his lips, and enjoyed the richest feast from his conversation. A clergyman, who came over, with two others, to pay him a visit, without any previous acquaintance with him, or any introduction but that which arose from community of sentiment, thus relates the interview: "To the latest hour of my life, I shall never forget that conversation; it made so deep an impression on me, that I did not forget one single sentence; after hearing him converse almost during the whole day, I returned with my companions to Cambridge at night; and we each determined, with an earnestness we had never felt before, to devote ourselves unreservedly to the promotion of the gospel of Christ. We wrote down the heads of that interesting conversation: but I had no occasion to write it down, for it was impressed indelibly upon my memory; and that day stands distinguished amongst all the other days of my life, like a day spent in Paradise."

Several of the most eminent and laborious ministers of the generation below him were visitors at Yelling, during their residence in Cambridge. One of the earliest amongst the number was the late

Rev. Thomas Robinson, Vicar of St. Mary's, Leicester; who, as Mr. Vaughan, his biographer informs us, took Mr. Venn for his prototype, in the discharge of his ministerial duties. Some there were too who remained in the University; and who were honoured, in their turn, as the instruments of fostering, directing, and establishing the piety of a multitude of young men, who have, each successive year, left college, to enter upon the duties of the ministry. The Rev. Charles Simeon, Fellow of King's College, and the Rev. William Farish, Jacksonian Professor, were of this number. Their labours are a testimony to the importance of Mr. Venn's connexion with Cambridge; for they willingly acknowledge how much they owed, under God, to his judicious and animating counsel. On this point Mr. Simeon thus has expressed himself: From my first entrance into Orders, to his dying hour, I had most intimate access to him, and enjoyed most of his company and conversation. How great a blessing his conversation and example have been to me will never be known till the Day of Judgment. I dislike the language of panegyric; and therefore forbear to expatiate upon a character which is, in my estimation, above all praise. Scarcely ever did I visit him, but he prayed with me, at noon-day, as well as at the common seasons of family worship: scarcely ever did I dine with him, but his ardour in returning thanks, sometimes in an appropriate hymn, and sometimes in a thanksgiving prayer, has inflamed the souls of all present, so as to give us a foretaste of Heaven itself: and, in all the twenty-four years that I knew him, I never remember him to have spoken unkindly of any one, but once; and I was particularly struck with the humiliation which he expressed for it, in his prayer, the next day.'

Mr. Venn continued his ministerial labours till he began to find his faculties impaired by age. He then had wisdom and fortitude enough to retire from that work, which, he said, required all the highest and noblest faculties of man. He used to observe, that the Levites, under the Old Testament, were dismissed from their service at the age of fifty; and collected from it, that God, who is the most gracious and tender of masters, did not require that his servants should exert themselves any longer than while their full powers and faculties continued.

Even after Mr. Venn was disabled from the exercise of his ministry, he knew not, as he often remarked, what it was to have a tedious or vacant hour. He found constant employment in reading and writing, and in the exercises of prayer and meditation: he declared that he had never felt more fervency of devotion than whilst imploring spiritual blessings for his children and friends, and especially for the success of those who were still engaged in the ministry of the blessed gospel, from which he was himself laid aside. For himself, his prayer was, that he might die to the glory of Christ. ments," he once said, "when I am afraid of what agonies; but I trust in the Lord to hold me up. before me to suffer, and to die, to his glory.'

There are some mois to come in the last I have a great work But the spread of the

Redeemer's kingdom lay nearer his heart than any earthly or personal concerns: even when the decay of strength produced an occasional torpor, this subject would rouse him to a degree of fervency and joy, from which his bodily frame would afterwards materially suffer. Nothing more powerfully excited his spirits than the presence of young ministers, whose hearts he believed to be truly devoted to the service of Christ.

About six months before his death, he finally left Yelling, and removed to Clapham, where his son was now settled as Rector. His health, from this period, became very precárious: he was often upon the brink of the grave, and then unexpectedly restored. A medical friend, the late John Pearson, Esq. who frequently visited him at this time, observed, that the near prospect of dissolution so elated his mind with joy, that it proved a stimulus to life. Upon one occasion, Mr. Venn himself remarked some fatal appearances; exclaiming, "Surely these are good symptoms!" Mr. Pearson replied, "Sir, in this state of joyous excitement you cannot die."

At length, on the 24th of June 1797, his happy spirit was released, and entered into the long-anticipated joy of his Lord.