Finely does the vicar continue his personal reminiscences of the visits to Thurston, and of his friend's kindnesses. We must asrain listen to him : —
* As for his kindness to his kindred, and neglect of the world, it was very remarkable. For this I can testify of my own knowledge, that, purchasing of Mr Tho. Clark and others in our town a messuage and lands at several times to the value of fifty pounds per annum, he paid the fines to the lords but never took one penny of the rents or profits of them, hut left the benefit wholly to his mother and his tivo brethren as long as he lived. So much did this heavenly-minded man of God' ('heavenly' seems instinctively to drop from eveiy one who writes of him) ' slight this present world (which the most men are so loth to part withal when they die) that he freely and un- desired parted with it whilst he lived, requiring nothing of them but only to be liberal to the poor. Nay, over and besides, if any faithful, honest man came down from Cambridge or London, where he lived, by whom he might conveniently send, he seldom or never failed to send his mother a
* An engraving of the churcli as it was before its fall is given in one of those privately printed family histories, for which we are indebted to the lovo of the Americans towards their mother country. ' The Brights of Suffolk, England ; repre- Bented in America by the descendants of Henry Bright jun., who came to New England in 1630, and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. By J. B. Bright. For private circulation. Boston. 1 vol. royal 8vo. 1858.' See opposite page 109. This book is of the deepest interest, well arranged, and illustrated lavishly with portraits and other illustrations.' Mr Bright in the most obliging manner sent me a copy.
eXXU MEMOIR OF RICHAKD SIBBES, D.D.
piece of gold, for the most part a ten shilling piece, but five shillings was the least, =1'- and this he continued as long as his mother lived. And would she have been persuaded to exchange her counti-y life for the city, he often told me that he would willingly have maintained her there in good view and fashion, like his mother, but she had no mind to alter her accustomed course ol life in her old days, contenting herself with her own means, and that addition which her son made thereunto.'
And still farther the good old man continues, with a love and reverence most affecting, and that only a true man could have se- cured : —
' For his special kindness to myself, in particular, I cannot omit that, being trusted by personages of quality with divers sums of money for pious and charitable uses, he was pleased, among many others, not to forget me. At one time he sent me down three twenty-shilling pieces of gold enclosed in a letter, and at two other times he delivered to me with his own hand two twenty- shilling pieces more ; and so far was this humble saint from Pharisaical ostentation and vainglory, and from taking the honour of these good works to himself, that he plainly told me that these gratuities were not of his own cost, but being put in trust, and left to his own discretion in the distribution, he looked upon me as one that took great pains in my ministry and in teaching scholars, and at that time labouring under the burden of a great charge of children, and so thought me a fit object of their intended charity. And from myself his love descended down to my son for my sake, for whom (before he had ever seen him, being then at the grammar-school at Bury, he then, chosen Master of Katherine Hall, pro- mised me a scholarship there of five pounds a year, and to provide for him a tutor and a chamber. And such was his constancy of spirit and his reality, that whatsoever promise he made me he would be sure both to re- member it and to make it good as freely as he first made it, that was un- asked and undesired. And for these manifold kindnesses all that he de- sired at my hands was no more but this, that I would be careful of the souls of my 2Jeople, and, in special, of his mother, his hretliren, and his sisters, and would give them good counsel in their disposing themselves in mar- riage, or upon any other occasion, as I saw they stood in need. And this one thing I may not pass over concerning myself, that in his last will and testament he gave me a legacy of forty shillings, with the title of " his loving friend," which I the rather mention, because I had not the least thought to have been in that sort remembered by him at his death, h\'ing at no less distance from him than of threescore miles. In a word, such v/as the low- liness of this sweet servant of God, such his learning, parts, piety, pru- dence, humility, sincerity, love, and meekness of spirit (whereof every one was a loadstone to attract, unite, and fasten my spirit close to his), that I profess ingenuously no man that ever I was acquainted withal got so far into my heart or lay closer there, so that many times I could not part from him with diy eyes. But who am I ? or what is it to be beloved of me, especiaUy for him that had so inaiiy caul great friouls as he had '? Yet even to me the great God is pleased to say, " My son, give me thy heart," and this poor and contrite heart I know he will not despise ; and this heart of mine, as small as it is, yet is too great to close with a proud, profane, worldly, malicious heart, though it be in a prince. But true virtue and