I

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

Find Jefus at prefent with me, and as precious to me

here, as in London. I have many proofs, that his prefence fills the earth, as it does the heavens. I feel that a child-like heart, and a simple spirit, is the greatest preservative at all times and in all cafes.

"O that I as a little child

May follow thee, nor never reft!"

I would not reft till I behold him in glory: then I fhall caft my crown at his feet. Now I have only a poor helpless foul to caft before him; but it is accepted in the Beloved, who gives me to feel, that in emptiness there is fulness, and that to leave defire is the way to find reft. I cannot exprefs the deep fense I have of my own poverty. Lord, how canft thou love a thing fo vile, fo mean as man! Becaufe thou art all love. And how condescending is love! "O how fwiftly did it move, to fave us in the trying hour?" I praise him, that he enables me to live in his will. All other refts I find uncertain, and unable to bear the weight of my foul.

The full falvation of is the thing my spirit pleads for: that he may excel himself daily, and that he may ftand perfect and compleat in all the will of God: that all I think, hear or fee of him, may teach me to pray, and weep, and love like him. My Jefus furround thy Servant with love's almighty power. And when thou haft fpared him a few more years, till thy people are more established in righteoufnefs, then let him be gathered as a ripe fhock of corn, into the garner of the skies. I cannot but acknowledge him a parent to my foul, fuperior to all others. Nor does this abate my love or reverence VOL. V. Ooo

to

was

feemed to be between the roof and the plaistering. Ann heard the fame noife three nights after. About a fortnight after this (and one year and half, after the death of Henry Cooke) Ann Lambert, at one o'clock in the day, faw in an inner room an Appearance refembling a man dreffed in his grave. clothes, which frightened her fo that the fwooned away, and lifeless for fometime: upon which they immediately left that houfe, and removed to another, about 300 yards . from it. A month after their removing to this houfe, Ann was fuddenly surprised as the lay in bed, by a stroke given to the bedfide. About a week after this, as fhe lay awake in bed with her husband, at midnight the faw at the further end of the room a fquare light, and in the middle of it, the appearance of a man's head as white as chalk. She awoke her husband, who faw it likewise. Four days after, fhe heard at one o'clock in the morning, a noife like the report of a large gun behind her; upon which fhe got up and flirred the fire, but could fee nothing; fhe then returned to her bed, but had scarcely lain down, when fomething jumped upon her, and preft her very hard, which feemed like the weight of a human body; immediately after this, the faw ftanding by the bedfide an appearance, dressed in a furplice and white wig. She faid, "In the name of God the Father, &c. why do you trouble me?" He answered "Meet me at one o'clock, and I will tell you what I want;" and then vanished away. No more noife was heard that night, but the next morning there were two heavy strokes given behind the bed, foon after her husband got up and went to his work. He had not been gone long, when he felt the heavy preffure, which was accompanied with a loud noife like the report of a large cannon; after this all was hufhed for fome minutes, and then there was a fhaking in the room, like the wind fhaking of trees; the Apparition then appeared at the bed's foot, like a man in his working dress, and paffing on flowly disappeared. Some days after this, as fhe lay in bed with her husband and chil

dren,

dren, (for they all lay together) about eleven o'clock at night, There was a great noife like a cannon, followed with the heavy preffure; then one of the children (a girl five years old) was taken out of the bed and carried to the middle of the room and laid on the floor. The mother cried out, and her husband got up and brought the child into bed again. In the morning the child complained of a foreness under her thigh, it being examined nothing could be discovered but the mark of a pinch in the flesh, which increafed every day more and more, and grew worse and worse till the child was obliged to take her bed, and remained five weeks under the Doctor's hands. The next night the noife was as ufual. The youngest child lying in the mother's bofom, was fnatched from her and carried out of bed; the mother immediately followed and found her child laid on the ground unhurt. The night following the noife was repeated, and the eldest child was partly dragged out of the bed; but upon the child's fhrieking, the parents awoke and pulled her in again: the bed fhook very much at these times. Being thus terribly frightened, and much fatigued for want of their natural reft, they refolved once more to change their habitation, to fee if this would put an end to thefe uncommon vifits. Accordingly they removed their little all into a house at the other end of the town. The third night after their removal, they were much difturbed by an uncommon scratching or scraping at their room door, and a great light at the fame time appeared at the foot of the bed. The fame week the preffure and noife were repeated: a few nights after her husband felt the preffure, which he thought would have preffed him through the bed.

About three weeks after at night, there was a great rumbling in the next room, when Ann asked, "In the Name of God what art thou;" but there was no anfwer: and the noise ceased. Soon after her husband went to work, about an hour after he was gone, the faw Henry Cooke ftand at her bed's foot,

dreffed

to him, who is the Father of the fpirits of all flesh: no; it

raifes my foul in holy gratitude to more dear to me than any creature.

God, a thoufand times
And I defire always to

be led by that rule, That which comes from God, leads to God.

May our Lord blefs my friend continually with the increase of every spiritual bleffing, till Faith is loft in Sight, and Hope in endless Enjoyment.

JANE COOPER.

TWO

ANECDOTES,

Collected by the Rev. Mr. A— in Rochefter.

FIRST.

NE Mr. Marshal, a Schoolmafter, a few years ago, lived oppofite to the Bell-Inn, Rochefter. His daughter, not quite eleven years old, defired her Father to fet her a new copy. He told her there were copies enough fet. But the faid, Pray fet me an uncommon one, fuch as, Death is the gate of Life." He wrote her those words. This was on the Saturday. She wrote a few lines, but was then taken ill and died on the Tuesday following.

66

ON

SECON D.

N Friday, December 19, 1777, one Bufs, a Gardiner, of Rochester, repaired with an acquaintance to à publichoufe; where fmoking his pipe, and talking of the Lottery then on foot, cried out, "O! if I fhould get five thoufand pounds! That would juft do! It would be the very thing!" No fooner had he fpoke, than the pipe dropt out of his hand, and without any struggle, died in an instant!

REMARKS

3

REMARKS on the Count de BUFFON's Natural Hiflory.

Malebranche maintains an odd conceit,

As ever entered Frenchman's pate.

PRIOR.

B

OUT is not the Count de Buffon's firft conceit full as odd? That the Earth (and so every other Planet) is only a slice of the Sun, cut off from it by the stroke of a Comet, p. 64. He that would take pains to confute this wild Theory, must have little to do.

In consequence of this, he supposes all the inner part of the Earth to be Glass, and strains every natural Phænomenon to fupport his Hypothefis. He is certainly a man of a most lively Imagination: pity that his Judgment is not equal to it.

Many of his thoughts are quite fingular. So vol. i. p. 12, "The upper Stratum of the Earth, from which all Animals and Vegetables derive their growth and nourishment, is nothing but a compofition of the decayed particles of Animal and Vegetable bodies." Impoffible! Was it compofed of decayed Animals and Vegetables, before any Animal or Vegetable had decayed?

"The Earth was covered with the fea for many Ages, and thereby the Strata therein were formed," p. 15.

I believe all the upper Strata were formed by the Deluge; though no man can tell how. Yet I allow, the Sea has covered many Countries, which are now far diftant from it. And I fuppofe fome Mountains were then formed by the flux and reflux of it, in the manner he describes.

"The vapours exhaled from the Earth depofit mud, of which mixt with particles of animal and vegetable substances, or rather with particles of ftone and fand, the upper ftratum of the Earth is compofed," p. 161.