happiness among our poorer and less fortunate neighbours; for recollect,
my dear, 'that all our doings without charity are nothing worth.'"

My mother had not yet been able personally to perform any of her
accustomed charitable visits since her lying in; for she was too strict an
observer of her religious duties, to go from home till she had gone to the
parish church, and publicly offered up her prayers and thanksgivings to
her blessed Creator and Saviour. The following Sunday was fixed upon as
the day for this religious ceremony. My father expostulated; saying that
the church was damp, and that she had better defer it till the next
Sunday, and, in the mean time, take some gentle walks abroad, to enure
herself by degrees to bear the walk and the fatigue of remaining in the
church during the length of the service. He expressed his great dread of
her catching cold, and having a relapse in consequence; but she firmly
replied, that she never feared any evil when she was performing a sacred
religious duty; that God was too wise and too good to permit one of his
creatures to suffer, when in the act of obeying his commands; and she
urged so many pious reasons to shew the necessity of her not delaying to
perform what she termed her indispensable duty, that my father silently,
but very reluctantly, submitted to her decision.

But, alas! alas! my father's prophetic forebodings were but too well
founded! The ways of God are just, and the dispensations of his wisdom are
not to be scanned, much more disputed, by impious man; to submit to his
Divine will without repining, is the imperative duty of every sincere
Christian. I shall never forget the day, nor the care and anxiety of my
excellent father. We set off early, in order to walk leisurely to church,
that my mother should not be so heated as to render her liable to catch
cold; there was my mother leaning on the right upon my father, and on the
left upon me, and two of my sisters, Elizabeth and Sophia, the one about