ed when travelling, &c. But she viewed every thing so much through a Christian medium, and so happily discovers in every thing she describes, or to which she alludes, the predominating influence of religious principle, that these letters appeared on this account, not the least useful parts of the publication. As there is not a more decided indication of a renewed mind, than a disposition to blend Christian feeling and sentiment, with all the common occurrences of life; the volume I conceived could not fail to suffer, if this portion of it. was omitted.

In presenting this edition to the British public, the Editor is not to be considered as agreeing with the excellent person to whom these Memoirs relate, in all the opinions she expresses. In such a publication, topics may be expected incidentally to occur, on which Christians conscientiously differ. But while in all that relates to the will of God, every one ought to be persuaded in his own mind, it would have been obviously doing injustice to the author not to have given her observations unmutilated and entire.

It is a very pleasing feature in the character of the Christians in America, and one that augurs most favourably for the state of religion in that country in the age that is to come, that they discover such a solicitude about the religious education of their children. This, too, is not confined to one denomination. As a proof of this, I refer to the account of a maternal association, mentioned in the note, page 139, an institution among a different class of professing Christians, similar to that to which Mrs. Huntington refers in the text.

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PREFACE.

In alluding to this subject, I may add, that few passages of this work will be read with deeper interest by parents, than the very judicious observations that occur in various parts of her letters on the subject of education in general, and her remarks both on the high responsibility of the parental relation, and the best method of discharging the duties arising from it. There is one circumstance which is calculated to make the volume peculiarly useful; I mean the variety of trials to which Mrs. Huntington was subjected before she reached the grave, at the early period of thirty-three years. Besides her own delicate state of health, she had lost, in addition to some other near relatives, both her parents, her husband, and two children; the one, (a son,) born after Mr. Huntington's death, and bearing his name; and the other, a daughter, labouring under a disease by which her intellect was affected. It would appear, also, that when her husband died she was left in rather limited circumstances. She thus had an opportunity of experiencing the consolations which Christianity imparts under these very varied afflictions; and both the afflictions and consolations are described with a power and impressiveness which, it is conceived, will render it impossible for a person of common feeling to read the account of them, I do not say with indifference, but without the deepest interest.

Her frequent descriptions, in particular, of the sorrows, and what she emphatically calls, the loneli+ ness of widowhood, are touched with peculiar tenderness; and very clearly show that fiction is not necessary most powerfully to excite the finest feelings of the human heart. "Who can tell," says

she, on one occasion," the sense of hopeless solitude, the shipwreck of earthly expectations, which they groan under, whom the Lord hath written desolate. The sun shines, the same nature rejoices, and all the great machinery of universal providence moves on, without interruption; but no revolutions can restore that which has been smitten by the touch of death. The chasm stares fearfully upon us; we say of this beautiful world, it is a wilderness, a desert." But the manner in which we find such descriptions, connected with her account of the consolations under her deepest anguish, which she derived from the Gospel of Christ, cannot fail to make this volume peculiarly acceptable to Christian widows; indeed, so much so, that I think no one who can possess it would like to be without it. Those especially, whether husbands or wives, who, in being bereft of their dearest friends on earth, have the high consolation of viewing them as having died in the Lord, will here find, in the language of a most interesting fellow-mourner, the most faithful delineation of all their acutest sufferings, blended with the richest sources of consolation. Under this kind of affliction, particularly, this publication may well receive the title given to a well-known, and useful little tract of the late Rev. Mr. Cecil,, " A Friendly Visit to the House of Mourning.":

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But I must not detain the reader longer from the Memoir itself. If it shall excite, in those who peruse it, the same interest which I have felt, it will readily be acknowledged to be a most valuable addition to the specimens we already possess, of female biography, and that an important service has been done to the world by the publication of this

admirable illustration of Christian principle which has been furnished by Mrs. Huntington's history. We have here an example of one engaged in the ordinary occupations of life, who was equally distinguished by a sound and discriminating intellect, and by a fervent but judicious piety.

સ

WILLIAM INNES.

P. S. The notes without any signature appear in the American edition. Those introduced into this edition have the letters Edit. affixed to them.

MEMOIRS.

MRS. SUSAN HUNTINGTON was a daughter of the Rev. Achilles Mansfield, of Killingworth, in the State of Connecticut. In this place her father was ordained to the ministry of the Gospel in the year 1779, and continued the Pastor of the First Church until death closed his labours in 1814. This gentleman was a native of NewHaven, a graduate of Yale College, and a respectable, useful, and much esteemed minister of Christ, and, for many years previous to his death, was a member of the Corporation of the College at which he had received his education. On the maternal side, Mrs. Huntington was descended from that pious man, so illustrious in the annals of the New-England churches, the Rev. John Elliot of Roxbury, Mass., who will bear, to future ages, the honourable title of "the Indian Apostle." Mrs. Mansfield was a daughter of Joseph Elliot of Killingworth, whose father, Jared Elliot, D. D., minister of Killingworth, was a son of the Rev. Joseph Elliot of Guildford, Conn., and grandson of the venerable John Elliot of Roxbury.

Susan Mansfield was the youngest of three children. She was born January 27, 1791. Her childhood was marked by sensibility, sobriety, and tenderness of conscience, and a taste for reading. Her education was chiefly under the paternal roof, and at the common

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