The Connecticut evangelical magazine

of the children and her own tender feelings.

Being a fine moonlight night, he went out of the house, to a retired fpot, at a little diftance, to meditate on thofe remarkable expreffions in Hab. iii. 17-19. Here he continued, as he thought, about an hour and a half; found great liberty and enlargement in prayer; and got fuch a heart-loathing and foul-humbling fight of himself, and fuch interefting views of the grace of God, and the love of his ador

out on purpose to spread his family and temporal wants before his Lord, yet, having obtained a heartattracting and foul-captivating view of him by faith, he was fo enamoured with his beauty, and fo anxious to have his heart entirely under his forming hand, that all thought about temporals was taken away.

houfe or hut upon a moor, called Barmour-moor, about a mile from Lowick, and two miles from Doddington, in the county of Northumberland. He had no means to fupport a wife and two young children, fave the fcanty earnings obtained by keeping an afs, on which he used to carry coals from Barmour-coalhill to Doddington and Wooler; or by making brooms of the heath, and felling them around the country. Yet poor and defpifed as he was in confequence of his poverty, in my forty years acquain-able Saviour, that though he went tance with the profeffing world, I have scarce met with his equal, as a man that lived near to God, or one who was favored with more evident answers to prayer. My parents then living at a village called Hanging-Hall, about one mile and a half from his hut, I had frequent interviews with him, in one of which he was very folicitous to know whether my father or mother In a fweet, ferene, and compohad fent him any unexpected re-fed frame of mind, he returned inlief the night before. I answered to his houfe; when, by the light of him in the negative, fo far as I the moon through the window, he knew: At which he feemed to be perceived fomething upon a ftool or uneafy. I then preffed to know form (for chairs they had none) what relief he had found; and before the bed; and after viewing how? After requesting fecrecy, it with aftonishment, and feeling unless I fhould hear of it from any it, he found it to be a joint of meat other quarter (and if fo, he begged roafted, and a loaf of bread, about I would acquaint him), he pro- the fize of our half-peck loaves. ceeded to inform me, that being He then went to the door to look difappointed of receiving money if he could fee any body; and affor his coals the day before, he re- ter ufing his voice, as well as his turned home in the evening, and eyes, and neither perceiving nor to his pain and distress found that hearing any one, he returned in, there was neither bread, nor meal, awoke his wife, who was still asleep, nor any thing to fupply their place, afked a bleffing and then awoke the in his houfe; that his wife wept children, and gave them a comforfore for the poor children, who table repaft; but could give me no were both crying for hunger; that further account. I related this they continued crying until they extraordinary affair to my father both fell to fleep; that he got them and mother, who both heard it with to bed, and their mother with them, aftonishment; but ordered me to who likewise foon went to fleep, keep it a fecret as requested; and being worn out with the fufferings fuch it would ever have remained,

called her and the man-servant in,~ and seemed in great agitation of mind. He told them that he intended to have invited a Mr. John Mool, with two or three more neighboring farmers, (who were al ways teazing him for his nearness)

that he would not invite them in the market-place, as he purposed to have taken them by furprise near home, as two or three of them paffed his houfe, but a fmart fhower of rain coming on, they rode off, and left him before he could get an opportunity; that going foon to bed he did not rest well, fell a-dreaming, and thought he faw Hown

but for the following reafon : A fhort time after this event I left that country; but on a visit, about twelve years after, at a friend's, the conversation one evening took a turn about one Mr. Strangeways, commonly called Stranguage, a farmer, who lived at Lowick-to fup with him the night before; Highfteed, which the people named Pinchme-near, on account of this miserly wretch that dwelt there. I asked what had become of his property, as I apprehended he had never done one generous action in his life-time. An elderly woman in company said, I was mistaken; for fhe could relate one, which was fomewhat curious: She said, that she had lived with him as a fer-ham's wife and children starving for vant or house-keeper; that about hunger; that he awoke and put off twelve or thirteen years ago, one the impreffion; that he dreamed Thursday morning, he ordered her the fecond time, and endeavored to have a whole joint of meat roaf-again to shake it off, but that he ted, having given her directions a day or two before to bake two large loaves of white bread. He then went to Wooler market, and took a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket, as ufual. He came home in the evening in a very bad humor, and went foon to bed. In about two hours after he called up his man-fervant, and ordered him to take one of the loaves and the joint of meat, and carry them down the moor to Thomas Hownham's and leave them there. The man did fo, and finding the family afleep, he fet them at their bedfide, and came away.

The next morning her mafter

was altogether overcome with the nonfenfe the third time; that he believed the devil was in him, but that fince he was fo foolish as to fend the meat and bread, he could not now help it, and charged her and the man never to speak of it, or he would turn them away directly. She added, that fince he was dead long ago, the thought the might relate it, as a proof that he had done one generous action, though he was grieved for it af

terwards.

This is the fact; let thofe that
read make their own reflections.
J. R.
Deptford, O. 4, 1793.

A STATEMENT

OF THE FUNDS OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY
OF CONNECTICUT.
No. I.

ACCOUNT of Monies contributed in the feveral Congregational Societies in the State of CONNECTICUT, for the Support of Miffions, on the firft Sabbath in May 1801, pursuant to a Refolve of the General Affembly of faid State, passed October 1798.

HARTFORD COUNTY.