LORD HILL'S COLUMN.

LINES BY SIR R. HILL.

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all respects, a spot of unrivalled interest and beauty. Treading on the ancient bulwarks thrown up by the conquerors of the world, and looking thence upon a very fairy land of beauty, the admirer of nature and of art seems lost as in a dream. At his feet lie the remnants of Roman power and glory, bringing to the memory its stores of the history of conquests achieved in ages long past away; before him there expands a landscape of indescribable loveliness and grandeur. In the foreground, a sloping wood of the noblest trees is spread over the bosom of a majestic hill fronting the knoll whereon he stands, the side of which is also covered with trees of equal growth, over whose tops he looks down into a valley forming a vista that terminates in a range of mountains; and among them stands the old Wrekin, the boast from time immemorial, of every true Salopian. Such is Hawkstone, the birth place of the brothers Richard and Rowland Hill, whose names will never be omitted in the annals of the eventful æra of religious revival in the last century. From many a point also in this home of true patriotism, may be seen the lofty column erected to the honor of Lord Hill, near the chief town of his native county, by friends, who while they admired his valour, knew how to appreciate his private virtues and urbanity. The mansion is now rendered worthy of its noble situation, and is surrounded by a tenantry made happy by those considerations of responsibility and duty on the part of its possessors, without which, wealth and and splendour are but the melancholy trappings of miserable selfishness. To his perpetual honour, Sir Richard Hill composed and erected upon the face of a lofty rock called the "Retreat," the following lines :

It has been improved and enlarged in excellent taste by the present Sir Rowland Hill.

Such were the feelings of this excellent owner of Hawkstone; and they are cordially responded to by those who have now succeeded him in his earthly possessions.

Amidst these scenes, of which this brief description is far from being adequate to the reality, the young Richard Hill passed the first days of his childhood. He was gifted with a natural quickness and vivacity of mind and in his earliest youth was susceptible of deep impressions. While yet a child, he was moved to serious thoughts of religion, which happily did not prove transient emotions, but ripened as he grew up into life. I possess in his hand

HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS CONVERSION.

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writing, a most remarkable narrative of his early experience, and am thus enabled to make him describe his own conversion for himself. This account is contained in a letter, written while still a young man, to a clergyman who desired to become acquainted with the progress of religion in his youthful mind. Like his brother Rowland, of whose conversion he was made the instrument, Sir Richard Hill was designed for extraordinary purposes in peculiar times. The awakenings of such men, have, in frequent instances, been as much out of the usual course, as the events of their subsequent lives have differed from the more even tenor of believers in general. The fire of conviction seems in these cases to have been made doubly strong, that the heart might be melted to receive such a deep impress of the heavenly seal, as no collision with the world could have power to impair. Sir Richard Hill, though firm in his views of the gospel, was by no means given to enthusiasm, and therefore his early history is more worthy of attention, as being a deliberate communication of the intense mental struggles through which he passed, as in a furnace that purified his inner man. After a short explanatory introduction, which I have omitted, as well as some other parts, either of too private a nature for the public eye, or not essential to the history, the narrative proceeds as follows:

"It would not be an easy matter for me to ascertain the time when the first dawnings of divine light began to break in upon my soul; but I remember particularly that when I was about eight or nine years of age, being then at a neighbouring school, and repeating the Catechism one Sunday evening, with some other boys, to the master, I found my heart sweetly drawn up to heavenly

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HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS CONVERSION.

objects, and had such a taste of the love of God, as made every thing else appear insipid and contemptible. But this was but a transitory glimpse of the heavenly gift; and I was no sooner withdrawn with the rest of my schoolfellows, than my religious impressions vanished, and I returned to folly with the same eagerness as before. But God did not leave me to myself; I had frequent checks of conscience, and the thoughts of death sometimes came forcibly into my mind. I remained about two years at the school before mentioned, after which I was removed to Westminster, where my convictions still pursued me, and forced me to several superficial repentances and resolutions; but these being all made in my own strength, soon came to nothing, though I could never lay them aside without first endeavouring to pacify conscience with Felix's opium, 'At a more convenient season I will hear thee.' But neither would this succeed; for though I would willingly have promised myself years to come, yet the reflection of the uncertainty even of another hour, was often in my mind.

"I saw, that young as I was, younger than I were daily called away; that I was not too young to rebel against God, and consequently not too young, if I died in my rebellion, to be punished with everlasting destruction from his presence.

"But these persuasive motions, if I may so call them, of the good Spirit of God, were not sufficient to overrule the obstinacy of my nature, and my love of sin. I had need, as the sequel will shew, to be dealt with by far more violent methods. When I had been about four or five years at Westminster, I was to be confirmed with several more of my schoolfellows. I looked upon this as going into a new state, and therefore made the most solemn resolutions of becoming a new creature.

HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS CONVERSION.

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But alas, my happiness and conversion were far from beginning here, as I had fondly imagined. The adversary, now finding that he was not likely to make me continue any longer in a state of practical wickedness by his former stratagems, began to attack me on another side, viz. by suggesting horrible doubts concerning the very fundamentals of all religions, -as the being of a God,the immortality of the soul, and the divine origin of the Scriptures. I endeavoured to reason myself into the belief of these truths, but all in vain. However, I thought I might easily get some book that should convince me of their certainty. Accordingly, I borrowed Dr. Beveridge's Private Thoughts, of a clergyman's widow with whom I boarded, she having first read to me a few pages in that excellent work. It was, to the best of my remembrance, whilst she was reading, that such glorious, instantaneous light and comfort were diffused over my soul, as no tongue can express; the love of God was shed abroad in my heart, and I rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory. However, these comforts, I think, did not last above half an hour at most, but went off by degrees, when the same doubts succeeded; upon which, I had again recourse to Bishop Beveridge's Thoughts, or to conversation on the subject of religion; and for several times as I did this, I experienced the same manifestations of divine love, which were sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter duration, but never I think, lasted above an hour or two. I remember one night in particular, that I laid me down to rest, cherished with God's comforts, and fully persuaded of every truth of religion, but woke in the morning an unhappy sceptic. Once, if not oftener, this heavenly light transfused itself over my heart, when I was neither reading nor praying, and it was so remark

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