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directing the attention of readers to God, to eternity, to their state by nature as sinners, and their state by grace as the redeemed of the Saviour. The literary and spiritual influence combined of the Bible was never more powerfully shown than in the production of this truly original book. The fame of its author has gone on increasing with every succeeding generation. In our own time, poets, scholars, critics, and historians, have vied with each other in eulogising it; and their commendations have made the book as much sought after by the great and noble, as it has been cherished from the first by the poor and lowly. Of no other book in the English language can it be said, that it equally pleases and instructs the young and old, the rich and poor, the learned and the ignorant.

CHAP. XI.

FEMALE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

IT is a question that will arise in the mind of every thoughtful reader — what were the mental characteristics of the women of the time of Milton? Never, perhaps, in any age, did the extremes of virtue and vice exist in greater contrast than at this period. Unblushing profligacy in the court, and the general frivolity of fashionable manners, destroyed the lovely feminine attraction of modesty in many high-born women of the time.

Yet there were noble exceptions to the general laxity of manners and morals. Two of the most beautiful biographies ever penned by female writers belong to this period. It adds to the value of these works that they were composed by ladies who were closely connected with the leading men of the two opposite parties, royalist and republican, Lady Fanshawe, the wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe the eminent royalist, and Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, the wife of Colonel Hutchinson the republican governor of Nottingham Castle during the civil wars. Each of these ladies wrote the life and experiences of her husband; each saw the same

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events from different points of view; each supplies a sort of domestic commentary on the public affairs of the time. It is curious to observe that the same motive influenced both in writing the memoirs in question. Each desired to present to her son a picture of a lost father's worth, and a model of the Christian gentleman, for imitation. Each was equally admirable in all feminine attributes of loyalty, sweetness, affection, discretion, and what some one has called "the glorious faculty of self help."

Unaffected fervent piety was equally their characteristic, though they were of different creeds and modes of faith, as to external worship. But truly spiritual Christians are all of one church; and though in this world, by reason of seeing through a glass darkly," they differ on minor points, they all will meet in that land where every mist and obscurity shall be dispelled by the glorious rising of the Sun of Righteousness.

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Their qualifications for the work of authorship were about equal. Mrs. Hutchinson had the better education, and the more philosophical mind; Lady Fanshawe a more unstudied grace, and quaint naïve simplicity.

Both were sufferers in the commotions of the time, and by the changes and reverses that befell their husbands; and though both were necessarily political partizans, they were so through the in

fluence of their affections, and in obedience to their relative duties. There is something instructive to all in the fine portrait of her husband's virtues given by Mrs. Hutchinson.

"To number his virtues is to give the epitome of his life, which was nothing else but a progress from one degree of virtue to another, till in a short time he arrived to that height which many longer lives could never reach; and had I but the power of rightly disposing and relating them, his single example would be more instructive than all the rules of the best moralists; for his practice was of a more divine extraction drawn from the word of God, and wrought up by the assistance of His Spirit; therefore in the head of all his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring of them all, his Christianity—for this alone is the true royal blood that runs through all the body of virtue.

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"By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God; whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the divine will and love, and all its actions directed to the obedience and glory of its Maker.

"He hated persecution for religion, and was always a champion for all religious people against their great oppressors. He detested all scoffs at worship, though such a one as he was not persuaded of it. Whatever he practised in religion was neither for faction nor advantage, but contrary to it and purely for conscience sake. He had rather a firm impression than a great memory; yet he was forgetful of nothing but injuries. His own integrity made him credulous of other men's till reason and experience convinced him. He was as ready to hear as to give counsel, and never pertinacious in his will when his reason was convinced.

"In matters of faith his reason always submitted to the word of God, and what he could not comprehend he would believe because it was written in all other things the greatest names in the world could never lead him without reason. He very well understood his own advantages, natural parts, gifts, and acquirements, yet so as neither to glory of them to others, nor overvalue himself for them; for he had an excellent virtuous modesty, which shut out all vanity of mind, and yet admitted the true understanding of himself, which was requisite for the best improvement of all his talents.

"He contemned none that were not wicked in whatever low degree of nature or fortune they were otherwise: wherever he saw wisdom, learning, or other virtues in men, he honoured them highly, and admired them to their full rate, but never gave himself blindly up to the conduct of the greatest master. Love itself, which was as powerful in his as in any soul, rather quickened than blinded the eyes of his judgment in discerning the imperfections of those that were most dear to him. His soul ever reigned as king in the internal throne, and never was captive to his sense.

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"If he were defective in any part of justice, it was when it was in his power to punish those who had injured him; whom I have so often known him to recompense with favours instead of revenge, that his friends used to tell him, if they had any occasion to make him favourably partial to them, they would provoke him by an injury. He that was as a rock to all assaults of might and violence, was the gentlest, easiest soul to kindness, of which the least warm spark melted him into any thing that was not sinful. There never was a man more exactly just in the performance of all duties to all relations and persons.

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"For conjugal affection to his wife, it was such in him,

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