CHAPTER XIII. AFTERMATH. THE effects of that great awakening which we have thus attempted concisely, but fairly, to delineate, are with us still; the strength is diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One chief purpose has guided the pen of the writer throughout it has been to show that the immense regeneration effected in English manners and society during the later years of the last century and the first of the present, was the result of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual force, awakening the minds and hearts of men in most opposite parts of the nation, and in widely different social circumstances. We would give all honour where honour is due, remembering that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." There are writers whose special admiration is given to some favourite sect, some effective movement, or some especially beloved name; but a dispassionate view, an entrance-if we may be permitted so to speak of it-into the camera, the chamber of the times, presents to the eye a long succession of actors, and brings out into the clear light a wonderful variety of influences all simultaneously at work to redeem society from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree of spiritual purity and mental and moral dignity. The first great workers were passing away, most of them, as is usually the case, dying on Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results of their work, but scarcely permitted to enter upon the full realisation of it. In 1791, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, "My work is done; I have nothing to do but to go to my Father!" No chronicle of convent or of canonisation, nor any story of biography, can record a more simple, saintly, and utterly unselfish life. To the last unwearied, she was daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging for her many ministers, disposing of her chapel trusts; sometimes feeling that her rank, and certain suppositions as to the extent of her wealth, made her an object upon which men were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity. Still, as compared with the state of society when she commenced her work, in this her closing year, she must have looked over a hope.ful and promising future, as sweet and enchanting as the ineffably lovely scenery upon which her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home. In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth year, entered into his rest, faithfully murmuring, as well as weakness and stammering lips could articulate, "The best of all is, God is with us!" Abel Stevens says, "His life stands out in the history of the world, unquestionably pre-eminent in religious labours above that of any other. man since the apostolic age." It is not neces |