I have not any memoirs of Colonel Gardiner's life, or of any other
remarkable event befalling him in it, from the time of his return to
England till his marriage in the year 1726, except the extracts which
have been sent me from some letters, which he wrote to his religious
friends during this interval, and which I cannot pass by without a more
particular notice. It may be recollected, that in consequence of
the reduction of that regiment of which he was major, he was out of
commission from Nov. 10, 1718, till June 1, 1724; and, after he returned
from Paris, I find all his letters during this period dated from London,
where he continued in communion with the Christian society under the
pastoral care of Dr. Calamy. As his good mother also belonged to the
same, it is easy to imagine it must have been an unspeakable pleasure to
her to have such frequent opportunities of conversing with such a son, of
observing in his daily conduct and discourses the blessed effects of that
change which divine grace had made in his heart, and of sitting down with
him monthly at that sacred feast where Christians so frequently enjoy
the divinest entertainments which they expect on this side heaven. I the
rather mention this ordinance, because, as this excellent lady had a very
high esteem for it, so she had an opportunity of attending it but the
very Lord's day immediately preceding her death, which happened on
Thursday, October 7, 1725, after her son had been removed from her almost
a year. He had maintained her handsomely out of that very moderate income
on which he subsisted since his regiment had been disbanded; and when she
expressed her gratitude to him for it, he assured her (in one of the last
letters she ever received from him) "that he esteemed it a great honour
that God put it into his power to make what he called a very small
acknowledgment of all her care for him, and especially of the many
prayers she had offered on his account, which had already been remarkably
answered, and the benefit of which he hoped ever to enjoy."