and gave me to see my sins in heart and life. I felt the evil of my ways, and wept bitterly before the Lord. I abhorred myself, and felt the evil and bitterness of sin as offensive to God. My soul longed after holiness, and I besought the Lord to wash me in the blood of Jesus. In the afternoon I heard an excellent sermon on effectual calling. My heart witnessed to the call of God in my heart, and to my having been made willing to obey it in a day of his power. Glory be to God! Sunday, March 15.-Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me be stirred up to praise and magnify his holy name! I sought the Lord, and he heard and answered my prayer. He has refreshed my dry parched fainting soul this day with the dew from heaven. What shall I render unto him for all his benefits? After a sore struggle this morning, with a weak and sick body and fearful mind, I called in my family to prayer. The Lord enlarged my heart in the duty. I was led to plead the promises contained in the new covenant, and to ask the fulfilment of them to our souls; and that we might obtain faith this day to lay hold on that covenant made with Jesus before the foundation of the world. At church Dr Webster took for his text, "And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant." He repeated all I had been praying for, and shewed that the Lord was willing to fulfil these promises to every believing soul. At the table Mr Plenderleath spoke to the same purpose, and exhorted us to lay hold on the covenant. His words seemed addressed to me as an answer to my prayer. Upon the whole, it has been a sweet day to my soul. I gloried in Jesus; I could have spoken aloud to his praise; his name was as ointment poured forth; the 1772, DIARY. 269 enemy was kept off, though he often attempted to molest me. I could not forbear giving thanks with an audible voice in my way home; my heart was exceeding joyful. O for that state when we shall enjoy the Lord without interruption, and without end! Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Since writing the foregoing page, the Lord has been pleased to send a severe fever upon me, which has confined me for seven weeks. It began upon the Monday after the sacrament, at which time I received uncommon consolation, and had a sort of impression that it was a strengthening cordial before some great trial. I was afraid it might have been temptation to some sin, and cried much to the Lord to keep me, and rather let me suffer any pain than sin against so much mercy as he had manifested towards me. For some days after, I thought myself dying, and my soul was cold and unaffected. I had neither fear nor joy in the view of death. I was enabled simply to commit myself into the Lord's hands, to do with me whatever he saw best. The chief uneasiness I felt was lest the rod should not be sanctified;-and I have cause to apprehend this, for, notwithstanding the amazing goodness of God to my soul and body, I continue a poor, weak, cold, ungrateful creature,-my mind is enfeebled, and I am unfit for every thing, but to learn patience and submission to the Lord's will. CHAPTER XI. Lady Glenorchy takes the management of her temporal affairs into ber own hands-Conducts herself with prudence and firmness-Makes all her temporal concerns subservient to religion-Extracts from Diary, from June 21. to July 18. 1772-Lady Glenorchy goes to Taymouth with Lord Breadalbane-Extracts from Diary, from July 26. to September 12. 1772-Lady Glenorchy returns to Barnton, becomes acquainted with the Ladies Henrietta and Sophia Hope-Lady Glenorchy forms the design of building a Chapel in Edinburgh-Circumstances attending laying the foundation-stone of that building-Extracts from Diary, November 26. to December 19.-Lady Glenorchy's great humility-Extracts from Diary, from January 1. to February 7. 1778— Lady Glenorchy establishes a chapel at Strathfillan, in the parish of Killin, and places it under the direction of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge-Lady Glenorchy goes to Taymouth -Becomes more and more necessary to Lord Breadalbane-Peculiar Christian experience-Extracts from Diary, from July 21. to August 8. 1773. DEEP seriousness and religious feeling, were the habits which continually occupied the mind of Lady Glenorchy; yet she was, as we before observed, possessed of strong natural abilities and talents for business, and shewed by her own practice, that true piety and a becoming attention to worldly matters, are far from being inconsistent and incompatible things. Having now the command of her time, she took her secular affairs into her own management, and permitted the intervention of men of business as little as possible. She was neither suspicious on the one hand, nor credulous on the other; and although she did not possess perhaps what is commonly denominated sharpness in worldly 1772. HER TEMPORAL AFFAIRS. 271 transactions, she had nevertheless penetration and caution sufficient to prevent any gross impositions being practised upon her. She let her farms, and collected her rents. But she never appeared at any time in a court of law, either as plaintiff or defendant, and yet she was never known to have suffered any material loss in her pecuniary concerns. Her personal appearance at Barnton was, of course, at times indispensably requisite. Accordingly, we find her there in the month of June this year, and this place must now be considered, in a sense, as her home. She, however, at the earnest desire of Lord Breadalbane, and that, too, frequently at a great deal of personal inconvenience, always attended him during the summer and autumn months at Taymouth, to the very end of his life, and for the most part spent the winter in Edinburgh; from which circumstances she could comparatively pass little of her time at Barnton. She was at this period employed in finishing the external arrangements and embellishments of Barnton, that its appearance might not with any justice be subjected to the censure of those in superior life who might occasionally visit it. These circumstances, however, she considered unworthy of being noticed in her Diary, which she confined to nobler and more important pursuits. Whilst she attended to duties of a temporal nature in their own place, she was much more seriously and earnestly engaged in arranging the state of her heart, that it might appear blameless in the sight of God. The former she found no difficulty in accomplishing; the latter, although she attended to it early and late, and with all her might, she could not reduce to the order she wished, and which was the almost constant subject of her thoughts, and her prayers, and her lamentations, and her tears before God, and the cause of which she searched for, as with lighted candles, through every avenue of her spirit, which will appear by the next quotation from her Diary. Barnton, June 21.-Being detained by sickness from public worship, I shall endeavour to employ this day in examination of my heart in the presence of God, to inquire into the cause of the decline I feel of the spiritual life in my soul. The symptoms are, reluctance to, and deadness in prayer,-disrelish for the word of God, and darkness upon my mind when reading it,-wandering thoughts in hearing, and in social prayer,-no desire to speak to others about their souls; not seeking opportunities of doing so, and rather shunning them, and when I am at any time obliged to do it, can say nothing to edification. I join more readily than I used to do in worldly conversation, and do not find it so tiresome as formerly. In the morning, instead of waking with the Lord, and finding his word upon my heart, I often find worldly thoughts there, which take such violent possession of me, that I cannot drive them out, even when I go to prayer. 1 feel a general decay of all the graces of the Spirit in my soul. The importunities of the poor weary me, instead of rejoicing, as I ought to do, in the privilege of relieving the wants of the needy. I feel grieved at the numbers who apply to me, and fear giving to them, lest I should not have enough left for the plans I have laid, not considering, that if the Lord calls for it in this way, and I give in obedience to his command, he will either supply me for the other purposes I have in view, or not call for the execution of them. I feel my conscience less tender than it used to be, my heart hard, and not grieved at the neglect of duty. I am apt to abuse the doctrine of free grace, and say in my heart, "If once in Christ, always in Christ; why then should I be afraid?" Thus I sit |