306 TIC DOULOUREUX. The following is an extract from a letter written by the Hon. Gideon Lee. DEAR AND REV. SIR, "I beg leave to express my gratitude to you for the book you were pleased to send me, but more especially for the kind wishes and pious benedictions which accompanied it. I thank you, Sir, as a citizen, also as a magistrate, for the long, arduous, and pious service which you have been able and willing to perform to an unfortunate class of our fellow beings, and I pray that a good Providence may still spare your life through years of usefulness and enjoyment. 66 "I am, dear Sir, "With great respect, Mayor's Office, January 26th, 1833." 66 "GIDEON LEE. February 28th. This," says Dr. S. "ends another month, and demands my thankfulness to the Lord for his forbearance, and the unnumbered instances of his kindness through Jesus Christ. The new complaint (tic douloureux,) which commenced in my right cheek last Lord's day morning, has much increased my sufferings. Well, the heavenly builder of this my earthly tabernacle, has been pleased, for about three years past, to take out many of its pins; the new disease may indicate that he is taking out some of the screws, which is a more painful operation. But he who built the tabernacle, and has preserved it in the wilderness of this world for nearly fourscore years, knows best when and how to take it down. To his wisdom and mercy I hope to be enabled to submit myself. 66 April 1st. My only wish is, that he will continue to visit me with his salvation, and that in every THE DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN. 307 breath I draw I may glorify his name, whether I live to see the end of this month or not. "June 7th. Still employed in writing for my family and friends. Afternoon visited by several friends. Among others, a lady who had returned from the West-Indies, and who, among other things, informed me that she had given one of my 'Guide to Devotion,' to a pious lady of wealth, who had been confined to her bed for some years. She found my little tract so salutary to her own heart, that she made it a rule to require her domestics to attend her, morning and evening in her chamber, where the tract is used as a guide in their devotional exercises. I make this note as an expression of my gratitude to God for his goodness, in making my efforts useful in a distant clime. July 31st. This day received a copy of a new edition of my Domestic Chaplain,' re-published in London. May the Lord bless it to the benefit of the reader, and the glory of his own grace. This makes the fourth edition.* 66 over "October 20th, Lord's day. This morning's light was accompanied with peculiar sensations, as it ushered in my eightieth birth day. A thousand thoughts rushed into my mind, and I was whelmed with a sense of the sparing mercy of God, and could not but exclaim with the Psalmist-' Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name,' &c. Psalm ciii. If I found my seventieth year labour,' no wonder if at eighty I find it to be sorrow.' This is the highest number of years in the computation of human life, beyond it all is vacancy ; and it is said to be soon cut off, and we fly away.' Lord grant me grace to fly to the Saviour's arms, to be at rest and free from sin." *To the venerable author of this useful work, it must have afforded great satisfaction to reflect, that about ten thousand copies have been published in Europe and America. 308 HIS LAST LETTER TO MRS. WETMORE. Dr. Stanford's last letter to his pious friend, Mrs. Wetmore, dated "MY DEAR FRIEND, "October 24th, 1833.. "Time is invaluable to man not only for its present use, but because it bears us on its wings to a solemn and inconceivable eternity. A sense of this led Moses, David, and thousands of others, to the throne of the Most High God with this petition-'So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom'-Psalm xc. 12. Happy shall you and I be, if the Lord is pleased to teach us such lessons, for we shall then be enabled to make a more profitable use of the little time which may be allotted us upon earth. Of this I was the more sensible last Lord's day, the 20th, when, by the sparing hand of my merciful God, I was permitted to enter into the eightieth year of my age. Then the contents of this psalm were to me highly instructive. "There I saw my own age recorded, (ver. 10,) and. the description exactly corresponds with my own feelings. The age of seventy is said to be labour, and so I found it; for the powers of nature began to fail, and soon after, by infirmity and disease, I began to find the grasshopper' burdensome, although I brushed. off the teazing animal as well as I could. How long I have to remain, I have no means to calculate; for when I was at seventy I could read eighty, though I little expected to realize it; but now, there is no number beyond this, all that is said is, whatever may be the degree of our strength that is left, it is soon cut off, and we fly away.' Happy indeed are those who now live by faith on Christ Jesus the Lord, for when the cord of life is cut, they pass away to the mansions of eternal rest; and this is that life I have long wished to live more sensibly and more honourably, till I go hence, to return no more.. DR. STANFORD'S LAST TRACT. 309 "I must add, that although I know the statement of Moses to be true, and I feel much of the labour and sorrow of old age, yet I am not disconsolate, nor quite alone; for the Lord is rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption; and among many other assurances he hath said-' Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.' Isaiah xlvi. 4. "That this God may be your God in Christ Jesus, and the God and Guide of your family even unto death, is the sincere prayer of "Your's in the Lord, "JOHN STANFORD." "December 11th. I find that nature rapidly fails, yet with all my conflicts I thank the Lord that the breathing of my poor soul is still towards himself, that he would grant me preparation to meet my final change. Amidst all my pains, I was assisted this day to write a small tract, On waiting upon God.' I am thankful for what may be my last service." January 1st, 1834, Dr. Stanford remarks:-" Under so many infirmities, and at so advanced an age, little could I have expected to have been permitted to see this New-Year. But it is the Lord's hand that sustains me, and I hope to learn new lessons of his goodness, forbearance, and grace in Christ Jesus, that if I am spared a little longer in this vale of tears, I may be preserved from evil, and produce some fruit to the honour of his blessed name, and the good of my fellow-creatures." About two o'clock on New-Year's day, 1834, immediately in front of Dr. Stanford's house in Lispenard-street, one hundred and fifty children, dressed in the uniform costume of the New-York Orphan-Asylum, and under the direction of their teachers, and Mr. Charles C. Andrews, the superintendent; formed a 310 AN AFFECTING SCENE. group of interesting objects, which soon attracted the attention of a multitude of delighted spectators. They had come to congratulate their venerable friend and father, on the return of another anniversary of his long life; and as the tear of affection bedewed the eye-lids of some of those hapless orphans, they seemed to say, while they gazed upon the good old man standing before the window, Our father! O our father! we shall see his face no more. After an interval of twenty minutes the patriarch came to the door; and in a strain of thrilling pathos, and paternal affection, delivered to the beloved orphans, whom he familiarly used to call his dear children," an address, which not only evinced the tenderness and solicitude of his heart, but seemed to portend that he was then delivering to them his last message from God-his dying testimony to the truth and blessedness of the Christian religion. "Children, O my dear children!" said he, " pray to God for new hearts. Seek the Lord while he may be found. I shall meet you no more, until the trumpet of the archangel wakes the slumbering dead. May I then meet you in your father's house in heaven." When the sound of his voice had ceased; the children sung the following beautifully appropriate hymn, in a manner which left an impression upon the minds of all present, that gratitude and filial affection filled each of their hearts. "Let us, orphans, look to heaven, Whence all blessings freely flow: "Praise the Lord for food and raiment, All our wants are well supplied." After singing, the children alternately ascended the stoop where he was standing, and received from |