"Made perfect first in love,

And sanctified by grace,
We shall from earth remove,

And see his glorious face:
His love shall then be fully show'd,

And man shall all be lost in God."

A few days after my dear mother remarked, "Praise the Lord, he is a God nigh at hand indeed, and not afar off; a very present help in time of need."

On the 4th of January, when my father was conversing with her, she said, "His mercies are exceeding great. O what a condescending God!" She then repeated, with satisfaction, those

·lines :

"Mere mortal powers shall fail and die,

And youthful vigour cease;

But they that wait upon the Lord,

Shall find their strength increase."

On the night of the 5th she said, "Lord, help me! My help standeth in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth! And the Lord help you," she added, addressing Miss Berger, who was sitting up with her," and bless you abundantly." Indeed, her great wish was to be kept fully trusting in God, and to be made by his grace meet for heaven. Hence, when suffering even to agony, she said, "I beseech you pray that I may be altogether as the Lord would have me." "Yes, mother," I replied: "and you can trust the Lord with body and soul, cannot you ?" "O yes," she answered: "my blessed Friend and Benefactor, the Lord Jesus Christ, who forgiveth all my sins, will keep me to the end." I read to her the hundred and twenty-first Psalm. "It is sweet and comfortable," she said. "Is it yours?" I asked. "Yes," she replied: "there stands all my help; my help is all on high."

Her illness was now evidently increasing, and her sufferings were frequently very great; but she accepted every interval with thankfulness, and rejoiced that her mind was preserved in calmness and recollection. "Thank God," she once said: "he maketh all my

bed in my sickness.”

On the night of the 6th she complained of a burning heat in her stomach; "but, O!" she added, "thank God it is not hell!" And in the course of the next day, reference being made in her presence to the goodness of God, and the sufficiency of the Saviour's grace, she exclaimed, as though the Lord Jesus had been visible to her,

"A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On THY kind arms I fall:

Be THOU my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all."

"Yes," she repeated, "he is indeed my Saviour and my all."

"You

feel him present and precious?" it was asked. "More precious than ever," was the instant reply; "more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. He has been my helper, and still He is so."

In this resigned and hopeful frame she was kept to her last moment. Throughout the whole of Friday, January 8th, it was evident that she was sinking; but the sufferings of failing nature were great." Pray for me," she repeated several times during the night. "He has been my helper; and He still does help me. Pray that He still may help." Miss Berger began the verse,—

"When life sinks apace, and death is in view,"

when she instantly, and with a brightening countenance, repeated the other lines,

"The word of his grace shall bear us safe through.

Not fearing or doubting, with Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting, The Lord will provide.""

6

After this she gradually sunk; till, on Saturday morning, she was only able to speak in broken sentences. But what she did say, and especially her expressive looks, declared that all was peace. About ten o'clock, when her spirit was almost released, the words quivered on her lips, "The word of his grace shall bear us safe through." A friend in the room said, not thinking she was heard, "If she could say a word more to us;" when the dying saint made an effort, "Trust in Jesus for mercy and grace, more and more."

These were her last words; for, at a few minutes before eleven in the forenoon of January 9th, 1836, she fell asleep in Christ, being in the eighty-seventh year of her age.

MEMOIR OF MRS. MARY HOWAT,

Of Crapaud, Prince Edward's Island, North America:

BY THE REV. THOMAS H. DAVIES.

AMONG the great variety of religious books that abound in our day, none, perhaps, are more conducive to the Christian's profit and growth in grace, than those which have for their subject the lives of the faithful. By biography of this character we are generally instructed, edified, reproved, and urged to diligence in our heavenly calling. It is hoped that the following brief narrative will, in some degree, contribute to the spiritual advantage of the Christian readers of the Wesleyan Magazine.

Mrs. Mary Howat was born at Goulsby, Lincolnshire, (England,) July 30th, 1796. Her parents, Richard and Mary Lea, now members of the Wesleyan society residing at Tryon, emigrated, with their family, to Prince Edward's Island, in the year 1818. The parents

of Mrs. Howat's father had been members of the Methodist society for many years. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Lea, was alive when the family last received accounts from England, and has been a Methodist for more than half a century.

Mrs. Howat, when young, and while residing in England, experienced those gracious feelings which result from the merciful visitations of the good Spirit of God; and being, through the instrumentality of a pious female, awakened to a sense of her condition as a sinner, she likewise sought and obtained a sense of her acceptance with God; but as she did not at that time unite with a body of religious people, thus remaining without the counsel of those who, from their superior knowledge and piety, would have been the means of leading her forward in the service of God, she declined in her religious course, and yielded to those follies which are incidental to youth, and which the enemy of souls never fails to present to those who, at an early age, would remember their Creator, that so, if possible, they may banish Him from their thoughts, and be turned aside for ever.

Her mind was naturally vigorous; but she had cause, after her decided profession of religion, to regret that she had for so long a period been ardent in the love and pursuit of trifles. A fondness for company and dress, it is said, was early discoverable in her; and an obstinate adherence to her own decisions, influenced sometimes by the levity and vanity of youth, made her occasionally a trial to her friends.

A particular statement of the means by which, through the power of divine grace, Mrs. Howat was brought to a decided and constant profession of religion, cannot now be furnished. The death of a sister, in April, 1824, appears to have produced a very salutary effect, reviving her neglected convictions of the importance and necessity of that experimental religion which she had too long omitted to cherish. The Rev. George Jackson was stationed in the Bedeque Circuit, when she was brought under these decidedly religious impressions. His judicious ministry was productive of great spiritual good to her in the commencement of her Christian course. We have heard her speak in strong terms of the advantage she derived from his ministry at that important period of her life. That of his esteemed successors was likewise beneficial to her.

Mrs. Howat did not quickly recover possession of her former peace of mind; but though she sought sorrowing, yet she continued seeking till she obtained the healing of her backslidings. When it pleased God to fill her with joy and peace in believing, she manifested a ready decision in his service. She had suffered from negligence before, and she now saw the necessity of both watchfulness and activity. Her husband was not then under the influence of those more serious views of religion which are the most consistent with the clear and often

repeated statements of the New Testament. He did not, therefore, see the necessity of that closer union with Christian society which his wife found to be so pleasant and profitable. But she was careful both thus, and in other means of grace, to wait upon God; and so she renewed her strength; and as her whole deportment recommended the profession which she made, his mind became before long very seriously impressed that the care of the soul was indeed the one thing needful. Yielding to these impressions, they became heirs together as of the grace of life.

In the year 1831 an extensive revival of religion commenced in the Tryon and Bedeque Circuit, a short time before the Rev. John Snowball left the station to attend the Annual District-Meeting of the Preachers. Mr. Snowball was succeeded by the Rev. William Webb, who was instrumental in promoting and extending the good work which had thus happily begun. Crapaud, during the above year, shared in the reviving showers; and Mrs. Howat's heart was gladdened, not only by the general prosperity of Zion, but, in particular, by the decided conversion of her husband.

Her own desires, during this gracious visitation, were directed very earnestly to the establishment and increase of personal religion. Reading such memoirs of pious females (of Mrs. H. A. Rogers, for instance) as exhibited the goodness and faithfulness of God in the performance of his promises, she was encouraged to seek for larger measures of divine grace than any she had previously enjoyed. She desired that God would "sanctify her wholly;" that he would so "cleanse the thoughts of her heart by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit," that she might "perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name." And the earnest prayers in which she "poured forth her heart before God" were not in vain. And in particular, one Sabbath morning, (1832,) while praying in her closet, resting on the word of God, she entered into what she indeed found to be as a "second rest." To the day of her death, she humbly, but most thankfully, acknowledged, that God had blessed her with that perfect love which excludes all “fear” that “hath torment;" and her acknowledgment was borne out by the tempers and dispositions which she manifested.

It is scarcely necessary to add to this sketch, that she loved all the ordinances of God's house, or that her "delight was in the law of the Lord." She read the Scriptures regularly: indeed her rule was, to read a portion of the divine oracles three times cach day; so that "the word of Christ dwelt in her richly."

Mrs. Howat's health, for two years before her death, was in a declining state, and she herself was convinced that her days were numbered. But this conviction interrupted not her joy, nor interfered with the performance of duty, except to make her more earnestly attentive to it. This was especially the case in one department. She made family arrangements in reference to her own departure. She

instructed her two oldest daughters (though only young) as fully as possible in household affairs, that they might be the more useful to their bereaved parent. The family now enjoys the benefit of her careful foresight.

But though thus attentive to duties rather secular than spiritual, yet the frame of her mind was not only habitually spiritual, but very evidently so. And while the outer man decayed, the inner man was renewed day by day. She sometimes seemed to rise above bodily weakness, when her friends spoke to her of the love of Christ, and of the present experience and future happiness of his people.

In March, 1838, she caught cold, and all the symptoms of her disease were aggravated. This was followed by a paralytic affection. But the peace of her mind was unimpaired, even when she spoke with great difficulty. "Are you now happy?" said her husband to her, on one occasion. "I have not had a doubt since my sickness began," was her calm reply.

A few days before she died she called for her children to come into her room, and urged them to seek so as to obtain religion; assuring them that she had herself both sought and obtained; and that what she had received was a source of enjoyment to her upon the bed of death. She appeared particularly desirous to impress upon their minds the reality of religious experience; and to guard them against substituting the mere form of religion for its heavenly power. She warned them against fondness for dress; and told them to seek that true adorning of a meek and quiet spirit, of great price in the sight of God. After she had conversed with them on their spiritual interests, and expressed her desires as to the way and manner in which she wished her clothes to be divided among them, she affectionately and calmly bade them farewell. She appeared now to be entirely weaned from the creature, and only to be waiting till her change should come. Several times after this, she repeated,—

"Jesus all the day long

Is my joy and my song."

But her extreme weakness, and the difficulty she felt in speaking, prevented her from saying much. It was evident, however, that she was passing from mortality in the light of the divine countenance, as, a short time before she expired, she repeated, with visible pleasure, though with a struggling utterance, "Hallelujah!” three times. In the morning of the 29th of March, 1838, her sufferings closed, and she calmly fell asleep in Jesus, in the forty-second year of her age.