Bible then in my hands, and read part of third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where our state by nature, and the way of redemption through a propitiatory sacrifice are clearly set forth. The eyes of my understanding, were opened, and I saw wisdom and beauty in the way of salvation by a crucified Redeemer. I saw that God could be just, and justify the ungodly. The Lord Jesus now appeared to me as a refuge, and I was glad to flee to him as my only hope. This was in the summer of 1765. Since that time, I have had many ups and downs in my Christian course, but have never lost sight of Jesus as the Savior of the world though I have often had my doubts of my own interest in him. I can safely say, that I would not give up the little knowledge I have of him, for any thing on earth. And although I have already suffered reproach for observing his precepts, and shortly expect to be scoffed at by all my former acquaintances, and to have my name cast out as evil, yet I rejoice in that he thinketh me worthy to bear his cross. And I now beseech thee, O Lord, to accept of my soul, body, reputation, property and influence, and every thing that is called mine, and do with them whatever seemeth good in thy sight. I desire neither ease, health nor prosperity, any further than may be useful to promote thy glory. Let thy blessed will be done in me, and by me, from this day forth. O let me begin this day to live wholly to thee. Let thy grace be sufficient for me, and enable me to overcome the world. And to thee be ascribed the honor and glory, now and forevermore. Amen and amen."

Great Sugnal in Staffordshire, where Lord and Lady Glenorchy sometimes resided, is at no great distance from Hawkstone; and the families had by means of this nearness become acquainted with each other, so far as to exchange visits. At this period, several of the younger branches of the Hawkstone family, Mr. Richard Hill, the Rev. Rowland Hill, Miss Hill, and a younger sister, afterwards Mrs. Tudway, were decidedly pious; and they bore and braved the reproach ordinarily drawn by a religious character, from the thoughtless, the formal and the profligate. Lady Glenorchy was not yet twenty four, and Miss Hill not much older, when by this correspondence, their slight intimacy was ripened into a warm and permanent friendship. Nothing could be more judicious, faithful and affectionate, than the first letter which Miss Hill wrote in answer to the unexpected communication from Lady Glenorchy, in which her once gay friend laid open the agitated and anxious state of her feelings under deep religious convictions. By the blessing of God that letter was attended by the happiest effect: it was the means employed by divine grace to rescue her from despondency, and to direct her to "the city of refuge." From that moment, without conferring with flesh and blood Lady Glenorchy resolutely turned her back on the dissipated world, and devoted herself, and all that she could command or influence, without reserve, to the service of her Re

deemer, and the glory of God. The correspondence between these friends, which was carried on without interruption from 1765 to 1768, was doubtless of the utmost benefit to both. None of Lady Glenorchy's letters, however, have been preserved: they were probably destroyed by Miss Hill, who survived her only a few years, on account of their containing much delicate communication.

Lady Glenorchy passed the winter of 1765, 6, in London and Bath, where every means was employed to induce her to return to the circles of dissipation: but neither severity nor artifice, both of which were put in practice, could divert her from her stedfastness. We find Miss Hill, in one of her letters, congratulating her on the resolution and fortitude she had displayed in resisting all invitations to places of public amusement at Bath, from a consciousness of the great danger she was in of being again entangled with the world. Lord Breadalbane, her father in law, though he did not enter into Lady Glenorchy's views in matters of religion, highly respected her integrity and talents, and entertained for her to his latest hour the warmest esteem. But she was exposed to much that was painful and trying from other quarters and was visited with some severe domestic trials. The loss of her only sister Lady Sutherland in 1766, must have been aggravated by the melancholy circumstances attending it. The death of their eldest daughter had so deeply affected Lord and Lady Sutherland, that leaving their seat at Dunrobin, they repaired to Bath, to seek relief in a change of scene and the amusements of the gay world; but they found it not. Soon after their arrival, his Lordship was seized with a malignant fever, with which he struggled with for fifty four days and then expired. The first twenty one days and nights his Countess never left his bed side; but at length overcome with fatigue and anxiety, she sunk a victim to her affection and fidelity, seventeen days before the death of her Lord. Lady Alva, her mother, uninformed of the event, was on her way to join her daughter at Bath, when, alighting from her carriage at an inn, she saw two hearses standing. On inquiring whose remains they contained, she was told they were those of Lord and Lady Sutherland, on their way to the royal chapel of Holyrood house, Edinburgh.

The winter of 1766, 7, Lady Glenorchy passed in the country, at a distance from all her religious friends, deprived of almost every outward means of religious instruction and comfort; and exposed thus singly to all the odium and unkind accusation which the singularity of consistent piety never fails to provoke. Every effort appears to have been made to reason or laugh her out of her convictions. She was charged with hypocrisy and superstition; and she felt these reproaches with an acuteness which occasioned the most poignant distress. Her health appears at length to have been affected by the conflict of her feelings. But her mild perseverance and resignation appear to have met with their reward. She never lost her influence over Lord Glenorchy, and at length obtained his tacit

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acquiescence in her plans. On her return to Taymouth, in the summer of 1767, she frequently invited clergymen to the castle to conduct domestic worship and to preach on the Lord's day, after canonical hours, to the household and as many of the neighbors as chose to attend. When in Edinburgh, she formed one of a select religious party, who used to meet at first in each other's houses, and afterwards at the house of the Rev. Mr. Walker, then senior minister of the High Church at Edinburgh, and colleague to the celebrated Dr. Blair. Among the distinguished ladies who used to assemble there, were the Marchioness of Lothian, the Countess of Leven and Northesk, Lady Banff, Lady Maxwell, Lady Ross Baillie, and others of rank and fortune. Mr. Walker on these occasions usually either expounded the Scriptures, or delivered a sermon; and these meetings were continued weekly by him to the close of his life.

It was about this period, probably at these meetings, that Lady Glenorchy contracted that intimacy with Lady Maxwell, which continued unbroken to the close of her life. In the year 1770, Lady Glenorchy first conceived the design, in union with Lady Maxwell, of opening a place of worship at Edinburgh, in which ministers of the Gospel of every denomination that held its essential truths might preach. With this view she hired St. Mary's chapel, which was opened by the Rev. Mr. Middleton; one of the six students, who, a year or two before, had been expelled from Oxford, for attending private religious meetings. This gentleman having received orders in the church of England, officiated at this time in a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith.

It was Lady Glenorchy's intention, that Divine service should be performed on Sunday evenings, alternately or indifferently by Presbyterian and Episcopal ministers, and that one day in the week, Mr. Wesley's preachers should be allowed the use of the chapel. The different opinions of the persons employed to officiate, however, in the nature of things never could coalesce. Large congregations were collected, and good was done to individuals; but the design which at that time was quite novel in Scotland met with much disapprobation from the religious public.

The ministers of the Established (Presbyterian) Church, refused to preach in it, on account of the admission of Mr. Wesley's preachers who were by no means generally acceptable. And at length soon after the Rev. Mr. De Courcy had accepted the appointment of domestic chaplain to Lord Glenorchy and minister of the chapel, her ladyship gave up all connection with the Wesleyan preachers.

In the year 1771, Lady Glenorchy became a widow. Lord Glenorchy had been seized with a fit in October of that year; alarming symptoms returned in the beginning of November, and on the eleventh, while Mr. De Courcy, was praying for him he expired. He was aware of his situation, and his last days afforded evidence that the religious sentiments with which Lady Glenorchy had labored to

impress his mind, had not been lost upon him. Nothing could show more unequivocally his Lordship's confidence in her, and his affectionate sense of her real worth, notwithstanding any difference in their religious views, than the disposition which he had made of his property. His will gave Lady Glenorchy his whole real or landed estate of the Baronies of Barnton and King's Cramound, and other lands, and all things belonging to him, in full right, constituting her sole executrix and legatee; with full power to convert the whole into money, and to employ or bestow the whole or any part "for encouraging the preaching of the gospel, and promoting the knowledge of the Protestant religion, erecting schools, and civilizing the inhabitants in Breadalbane, Glenorchy and Netherhouse, or other parts of the Highlands of Scotland," in such a way and manner as she shall judge proper and expedient. Of the existence of these deeds, Lady Glenorchy was completely ignorant till they were produced after his Lordship's death. She was thus at the age of thirty, left her own mistress, with an independent fortune of between two and three thousand pounds a year, under circumstances which called for all her prudence, firmness and discretion.

The first use which Lady Glenorchy made of the wealth, with which she found herself thus unexpectedly endowed, was the erection of a chapel at Edinburgh, which she designed to be in communion with the established church of Scotland. The first stone was laid in the month of August, 1772. It was, however, many years before her design was fully realized by the settlement of a stated pastor. Early in the following year it having been represented to her, by the minister of the parish, that the district of Strathfillan, was in urgent need of additional means of religious instruction, her ladyship lost no time in repairing the chapel there, endowing it, and placing it under the patronage of the Society in Scotland, for propogating Christian knowledge. The chapel still remains and continues to be useful. She also procured two missionary preachers of the Scottish establishment, under the sanction of the same society, to go at her own expense through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

The state of her health rendering it necessary for her to pass the winter in a warmer climate, she spent the close of 1776, and a great part of the following year, in various parts of the west of England, where her zeal displayed itself in constant efforts to promote the spread of the gospel. At Exmouth, she purchased a house, and fitted it up as a chapel, in which a congregation of some hundreds was soon collected. She returned to Edinburgh, in the summer, but from this period, continued to spend part of every year in the west of England. In the year 1781, Lady Henrietta Hope, on the death of her father, the Earl of Hopetoun, took up her abode with Lady Glenorchy; and the two friends, who were of one heart and mind in all things, went hand in hand in their labors of benevolence and works of charity. Though an invalid like herself, Lady Hen

rietta's happy temper, prudence and sagacity, rendered her society an invaluable acquisition to her friend. In passing through Carlisle that year, on her way to Buxton, observing an old Presbyterian church shut up, Lady Glenorchy, after due inquiry, purchased and endowed it, taking care to provide an evangelical minister. The church has since been enlarged and continues to flourish. Some years after, being compelled to remain at Matlock over Sunday, in consequence of her carriage having broken down, she found the state of religion in that village, on inquiry, very low, and immediately determined on the purchase of a chapel and house adjoining, which she ultimately accomplished. This chapel has also been the means of much good to the neighborhood. Hope chapel, erected at Bristol Hot wells, was undertaken at the joint expense of Lady Glenorchy and Lady Henrietta Hope: but the latter did not live to see her design carried into execution. She bequeathed £2500, however for this purpose, and Lady Glenorchy gave it that name in memory of her friend regarding it as her most suitable monument. Lady Glenorchy appears also to have been instrumental in opening a place of worship somewhere in Devonshire.

She also built a manufactory for the employment of the poor, where the education of children was strictly attended to even the porter's lodges on each side of her gate were occupied as schools for the neighboring poor. Her pleasure-grounds were thrown open for the accommodation of the numbers who usually come from a distance to attend a communion season in Scotland. In a year of scarcity the same grounds were planted with potatoes for the supply of the poor. She distributed with great judgment various sums of money in aid of families who were poor, yet deserving. She never encouraged idleness or pride, and often remarked that it was better to assist people to do well in the sphere which Providence has assigned them, than to attempt to raise them beyond it. There was so much wisdom in the active application of her benevolent charities, as to render them both efficient and extensive. She seldom was seen in these works of beneficence; her object was to do good: the gratitude of those on whom she bestowed benefits, was no part of her motive, or even of her calculation. What she did, she did unto God, and in obedience to his commands: her faith and hope were in God. She contributed largely to the public spirited Institutions established at Edinburgh in her day. One or two of the most useful she was the first to suggest the idea of, always accompanying her recommendation with a handsome donation in money to encourage the work.

She indulged the hope of seeing a union of exertion amongst all Christian denominations, for sending the Gospel to the Heathen. How delighted would she have been with the Missionary Societies of London and elsewhere, had her life been spared to behold their extensive operations! She sold her estate of Barnton, that she might