Personal Recollections | Page 6

do you mean, child?"
"I mean, papa, may I be burned to death for my religion, as these were?
I want to be a martyr."
He smiled, and made me this answer, which I have never forgotten:
"Why, Charlotte, if the government ever gives power to the Papists
again, as they talk of doing, you may probably live to be a martyr."
I remember the stern pleasure that this reply afforded me; of spiritual
knowledge not the least glimmer had ever reached me in any form, yet
I knew the Bible most intimately, and loved it with all my heart as the
most sacred, the most beautiful of earthly things. Already had its
sublimity caught my adoration; and when listening to the lofty
language of Isaiah, as read from his stall in the cathedral by my father
in Advent, and the early Sundays of the year, while his magnificent
voice sent the prophetic denunciations pealing through those vaulted
aisles, I had received into my mind, and I think into my heart, that
scorn of idolatry which breathes so thrillingly in his inspired page. This
I know, that at six years old the foundation of a truly scriptural protest
was laid in my character; and to this hour it is my prayer that whenever
the Lord calls me hence, he may find his servant not only watching but
working against the diabolical iniquity that filled the Lollard's pit with
the ashes of his saints.
And now upon that all-important topic the Bible I would remark, that
among the most invaluable blessings of my life I remember the
judicious conduct of my parents in regard to it. We generally find that
precious volume made a book of tasks; sometimes even a book of
penalties: the consequence of so doing cannot but be evil. With us it
was emphatically a reward book. That identical book is now before me,
in its rich red cover, elegantly emblazoned with the royal arms; for it is
the very Bible that was placed before queen Charlotte at her coronation

in 1761; and which, becoming the perquisite of a prebendary of
Westminster, was by his wife presented to my mother, to whom she
stood sponser. This royal Bible was highly prized; and it was with
special favor that it was opened for us when we had been good, and
were deemed worthy of some mark of approval. My father, then, whose
voice made music of every thing, would read to us the history of Abel,
of Noah, of Moses, of Gideon, or some other of the exquisite narratives
of the Old Testament. I do not say that they were made the medium of
conveying spiritual instruction; they were unaccompanied by note or
comment, written or oral, and merely read as histories, the fact being
carefully impressed on our minds that God was the author, and that it
would be highly criminal to doubt the truth of any word in that book. *
* * The consequences of this early instruction, imparted as an
indulgence, I have reason daily to rejoice in: it led me to search for
myself the inspired pages; it taught me to expect beauties, and
excellences, and high intellectual gratification where God has indeed
caused them to abound. As in the natural world we find the nutritious
fruit not lying like pebbles on the ground, but hung on graceful trees
and shrubs, heralded by fair and fragrant blossoms, embowered in
verdant foliage, and itself beautifully shaped and tinted; so has the Lord
arranged that the garden where grows the fruit of the tree of life, should
abound in all that is most lovely to man's natural perception; and do we
not slight this bounteous care for our mind's enjoyment while he makes
provision for our soul's sustenance, when we neglect to point these
things out to the notice of our children? The word was my delight many
a year before it became my counsellor; and when at last the veil was
withdrawn from my heart, and Jesus stood revealed as the Alpha and
Omega of that blessed book, it was not like gradually furnishing a
vacant place with valuable goods, but like letting a flood of day into
one already most-richly stored with all that was precious; though, for
lack of light whereby to discern their real nature, the gems had been
regarded but as common things. My memory was plentifully stored
with what it had been, my free choice to study; and when in the
progress of this little narrative you learn how mercifully I have been
preserved from doctrinal error in its various forms, through that full
acquaintance with God's word, you will trace his marvellous workings
in thus furnishing my mind, as it were, with an armory of ready

weapons, and will be ready