the false medium of its mistaken principles, he could not feel the necessity, nor comprehend the duty, of making such a sacrifice. Strict integrity, he was ready to admit, in all the transactions of social or commercial life, was an indispensable duty; it had ever been the rule of his own conduct; in respect to these, no mental reserve, however slight, ought, on any account, to be allowed; but to extend this to the usage of mere forms, by which no one was injured, and which might be considered as being simply official, was in his mind, to the last degree, visionary and absurd. He was indefatigable, therefore, in his endeavours to dissuade his friend from persevering in his resolution: he stated to him the deprivations he must suffer; the difficulties he would have to encounter; the obloquy to which he would subject himself; and at length, when he found him immoveable on every consideration that respected his own sufferings, he changed the mode of attack, and asked him if he had a right to subject Mrs. L. to so many inconveniences and hardships? Here he found that his friend was not invulnerable; his final resolution indeed, being the calm and deliberate result of many an anxious hour, be could not shake, but he could pour into the appointed cup, a tenfold portion of bitterness. I was at Catterick when Mr. L. returned thither, and never can I forget his altered looks, and depressed countenance :- his very recollection seemed to be impaired, as he answered our anxious enquiries about his health, as he feebly ascended the few steps leading from the garden to the entrance. "How is all this," he said, " can one indispensable duty ever really be incompatible with another?" We did every thing in our power to soothe and calm his mind; and, in a very few days, he was enabled to recover his usual serenity. This was in truth, "his hour of darkness;" but it happily soon passed away. As to myself, I felt nothing but resentment against Mr. M. for taking, as I thought, an undue advantage. I did not sufficiently consider that the motive was kind and friendly, and that he conceived the use of every argument to be justifiable, which could save a self-devoted victim, on the edge of a precipice, from being precipitated to his own destruction. 'I would here pause a moment, to remark, what must indeed be observed by every one, who is in the habit of paying the smallest attention to what passes, at different times, in his own mind, how much and deeply we are affected in our progress through life, but particularly, before our moral and religious principles are by long consistent practice, become settled habits; by the outward circumstances in which we are placed, and the different associations which in consequence of these, we are led to form. So true it is, that religious and moral, as well as natural objects, alter their size and colour, and change their apparent magnitude and character, according to the relative positions and different mediums through which they are viewed.

'As things seem large, which we through mists descry.' p. 156-8, Our readers may judge of the sacrifices to which Mr. and Mrs.

Lindsey submitted, on resigning the competence he enjoyed in the establishment, from the account, which Mrs. Cappe gives of the situation, in which she found them, on her first visit to them, after they had taken up their abode in London.

In the following May, I realised the hope had many months indulged, of visiting Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey, in London. I found them in a small lodging, upon the ground-floor of a house, in Featherstone Buildings, Holborn; the first floor was occupied by more affluent lodgers, and I had an apartment up two pair of stairs, in the pilgrim style. Mr. Lindsey had no place for the remnant of his library, but a small closet through the bed-chamber, which served at once for his study, and for their store-room and cellar. The books were piled upon each other, and as there was no room for a chair or table, were so contrived, as that part of them should serve as a seat, and another part as a writing-desk. Under all these circumstances, Mr. L. was cheerful, easy, and contented; the people of the house dressed their victuals, of which a very small portion sufficed. Among their earliest patrons, the late excellent Mrs. Rayner deserves a foremost place. This lady was a person of good fortune, of great energy of mind, excellent principles, and of unbounded generosity, where a great object was to be obtained; otherwise, of habits the most economical. She first heard of Mr. Lindsey by the following accident. Her maid one day asked her permission to go to EssexStreet, where she had heard that a gentleman was going to open a room, to preach a new religion. Permission was obtained, and on her return, Mrs. R. not being perfectly satisfied with the young woman's very imperfect account, determined to call upon the gentleman herself, which she did accordingly the following morning; and upon hearing a full explanation of the object intended, and of the circumstances that had led to it, she not only gave it her most entire approbation, but became afterwards one of his greatest and most steady friends.' p. 177.

The example of her venerated friends seems to have had a powerful influence on the mind of Mrs. Cappe. She did not for many years suppose that a disbelief of the doctrine of the Trinity, which the Established Church deems fundamental, involved in it any obligation on the part of an obscure individual, to separate from its communion. And she thus feelingly. adverts to her early impresssions. Attached to the establishment by long habit; by respect to the memory of my father as a church minister, and by many a pleasing early association; having often anticipated with delight the return of that sacred day, when I should repair with those most highly honoured and beloved, to the ancient, venerable edifice, consecrated by the piety of successive generations; having often attended the village funeral, and connected together the firm belief in a glorious resurrection, with the mouldering relics revealed to sight by the affecting developements of a new

made grave;—having listened with awe, not unmixed with pleasure, to the simple stanzas of Sternhold, in the full chorus of village harmony; a strong predilection in favour of the whole was unavoidably generated; and it is highly probable, that I should always have continued to act under its influence, had I not been impelled to a more thorough examination of the subject by the train of reasoning I was led into by my venerable friend at Catterick; and which was afterwards more emphatically enforced by his own powerful example, and by the noble conduct of his exemplary companion.'

After a succession of pecuniary difficulties, chiefly occasioned by the improvidence of her only brother, Mrs. Cappe, (then Miss Harrison) with her mother, removed to York. Here amidst the exemplary discharge of the offices of filial affection, and with very limited resources, requiring painful economy, her benevolent spirit found exercise in several useful charities, which she essentially benefitted by her discreet and enlightened zeal. Her greatest enjoyment was on the Sunday in attending Mr. Cappe's Chapel, where she was a constant hearer, and in the course of that summer, (1782) heard from him his admirable series of sermons on the providence and government of God, which have since attained such high celebrity. Her acquaintance with Mr. Cappe, began with his successful defence of Mr. Lindsey in 1744, about a year after his becoming a widower; and was eventually productive of a mutual attachment, which however from various prudential considerations, was for some time implied rather than avowed. Of course it could not have been without the embarrassments, which under similar circumstances are ever in danger of occurring in any small community, where every one takes the deepest interest, and maintains the most watchful eye upon the matrimonial plans and progress of their neighbour; and in every history of which therefore, especially such as follows, we may be certain of never wanting readers to feel a sincere concern. We cannot avoid giving it in Mrs. C.'s words.

'This intercourse'-of friendship with Mr. Cappe-' in itself so useful and so pleasant, was however, in great danger of being interrupted by a report which became prevalent, that it was likely to terminate in a matrimonial connexion; and I hardly ever went into any company, that I was not either congratulated or condoled with upon the occasion. The talents of Mr. Cappe, it was said, were undoubtedly great, and his character unexceptionable; but then his situation in life-a dissenting minister, and with so large a family! In vain did 1 affirm, what was at that time the simple truth, that no other connexion than what then subsisted, had been thought of, or was intended; not much credit was given to my assertions: and although

I should have little regarded the report, as far as myself only was concerned, yet it assumed a more unpleasant aspect, when I found that it was often obtruded upon him also. How was I now to act? to continue the same frequent intercourse, without sorge explanation, was rendered next to impossible, and to decline it, was to give up for a punctilio, the most improving society, and the sincerest friendship. Should I continue passive, and let every thing take its course, I might subject my friend to the pain of a refusal; for I had now reason to believe, and I was afterwards confirmed in the belief, that the consequence on his part, should no explanation take place on mine, would have been a proposal, which I could not have accepted, without probable injury to his family, and increased embarrassment to my own. Mr. Cappe, indeed, knew that my property was small, but he did not know the impending ruin with which my poor brother was still threatened, nor did he know that I considered myself bound in honour, in the way already mentioned, in a debt of 7001. on my brother's account; and therefore, he could not see the full extent of those obstacles, which to my mind, appeared insuperable.

"At length therefore, after much anxious deliberation, I determined to write a letter to him, lamenting the current report, on the ground of the utter impossibility, that either of us, being so peculiarly circumstanced, could entertain a thought of any other connexion, than that which at present subsisted; and therefore requesting, being both conscious of this, that we might not relinquish our present friendly intercourse, on account of the mistakes or misapprehensions of others. It was evident from his reply, that the subject did not appear to him in exactly the same light in which I had put it, and that he wished earnestly for a further explanation.' p. 232–3. These difficulties however were finally overcome; and in 1788, six years after her removal to York, she became the wife of Mr. Cappe. Her new situation opened to her only a wider field for her fine powers; and but for her aid as his amanuensis, during his protracted illness, most of those valuable works, of which she afterwards became the editor, would have remained, as she tells us in her memoirs of him, "locked up in an unintelligible short-hand.' Indeed such was her admiration of his talents and pulpit services, that the hope of being instrumental to such a work, and of benefitting the religious world by his publications, she declares to have had great influence with her in inducing her to become, as she chooses to express it, an inmate of his family.' She at once obtained the unqualified confidence and affec tion of his six children; and amidst severe domestic trials-of which she had early and long experience,-she must have maintained a most exemplary serenity, tenderness, and judgment. Of the variety and extent of these trials, no less than of her maternal affection, the reader will infer, when in writing of a period of

peculiar anxiety and distress she says, "The only event, that occurred during these two years*-(1792-3) from which we could derive any pleasure, was the adjudication of a gold medal to our youngest son (then a student in the hospitals in London) for a dissertation on a given medical subject."

No part of Mrs. Cappe's character was more striking than her unwearied activity in doing good : and her well known benevolence opened to her some scenes of suffering, which those, who live only for themselves, amidst security and comfort, would scarcely believe had a reality. We know nothing in fiction more touching than the history of the deserted young Irishwoman, for whom Mrs. Cappe interposed her generous and undaunted exertions. She was instrumental by her influence and perseverance of correcting some enormous abuses in the public charities, particularly the Insane Asylum of York; and the pamphlets, which she has published on these subjects, have, we understand, been eminently useful in exciting to investigation and reform in similar institutions in other parts of England. Of her humility-the total freedom from ostentation and display, with which she has pen. ned her own Memoirs is no equivocal indication:-there is not a word here that betrays the smallest vanity;-and of her piety, not her writings only, but her profound submission to the will of God and her cheerful trust under complicated troubles, are convincing evidence. Her faith in the religion of Jesus Christ had a sustaining power. She prized the gospel as above all price and amidst darkness, and care, and sorrow she never lost sight of its immortal hopes.†

We would gladly follow this inestimable woman through her long and useful life. She survived her husband more than twenty years, attaining the venerable age of seventy-seven. From her daughter, Miss Mary Cappe, who has annexed to these memoirs an interesting supplement, describing the few last months of her mother's life, we are informed, that though her bodily

* At this period Mr. Cappe was seized with the first violent attack of the disorder, which confined him to his house for many years before his death; and his son Dr. Joseph Cappe, a most promising young physician, died of consumption; while the charge of providing for his pulpit, which devolved on Mrs. Cappe, subjected them to much additional expence amidst very limited resources.

+ Mrs. Cappe's writings, more particularly, her reflections on the history of the gospel, published with her husband's notes, sufficiently prove that she was an habitual and attentive reader of the scriptures "For my own part," says she, "I fan truly say, that in the course of a long life, not wholly spent without observation, I have never yet seen an instance, where the bible has been habitually read, though the understanding respecting the genuine import of many passages may not always have been much informed, that the heart has not been made wiser and better, that many evil passions have not been corrected, although perhaps not wholly subdued, and the pious and benevolent affections further cultivated, improved and enlarged." p. 376.

New Series-vol. V.

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