Religion in Earnest | Page 5

your house.' 'Well,' said he, 'I know you live well.' I replied, 'We do; but I have not lived so well to day as I might have done; for I feel rather hungry.' He smiled, and bid his daughter put on the tea kettle. We then entered into conversation, in which he said, 'You write parables to me, for you told me the sun was going down.' I answered, 'I did so, and my reason for it was, I knew I had stirred up your wrath in marrying your daughter against your mind, and was fearful lest the sun should go down upon it.' He burst into a flood of tears, and was so melted down, that for three hours, I was prompted both by his feelings and my own to speak of the love of Christ to poor sinners. * * * This was a night to be remembered as my reconciliation with Mr. Stables was at this time effected." The understanding thus happily brought about was never after interrupted; and Mr. Stables practically evinced the sincerity of his feelings by securing to his daughter an annuity for life. In his last illness, which occurred a few years later, Mr. Burdsall, by his own request, frequently visited him, and ministered to his spiritual wants. He died in peace on the 13th of June, 1787.
The first fruits of the union of Richard Burdsall and Mary Stables, was Mary, the subject of the present memoir--the step-sister of the Rev. John Burdsall, who still survives. She was born at York, without Bootham bar, June 19th, 1782. The house which no longer exists, stood just under the shadow of the old gateway, nearly opposite the modern crescent, known as St. Leonard's Place.
The foregoing facts, which to some may appear superfluous, are here introduced not merely with the view of making the reader acquainted with the antecedents of my honoured mother; but the much higher object of illustrating the sovereign mercy of God, and tracing the growth of the religious element in the family. Many a page deeply interesting and instructive might be written which would unfold the grace of God in the history of particular families, flowing as a stream of light from generation to generation, or diffusing itself in the collateral branches; here swelling as "broad rivers and streams," and there narrowed down to a single channel. The causes of such alternations might be profitably investigated, and recorded. The inquiry into one's ancestry would thus answer a nobler purpose than the gratification of human vanity, or the recovery of an alienated inheritance; it would exhibit the influence of the past upon the present, afford important lessons of encouragement or admonition, and discover our claim perhaps, to something better than gold or silver "for the good man" even though he is poor, "leaveth an inheritance to his children's children." How far the moral character as well as the physical constitution of a parent may affect the happiness and control the destiny of his children, is a question, which may be incapable of an exact and satisfactory solution; but the general fact, notwithstanding some strange exceptions, (which however may not be altogether incapable of explanation,) is sufficiently established, that examples of singular excellence, or notorious profligacy may usually he traced to seeds sown in a former generation. They are not therefore to be altogether regarded in the light of isolated phenomena, but as the result of causes, which may be more or less accurately determined. At all events, God reveals himself as "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him, and SHEWING MERCY UNTO THOUSANDS OF THEM THAT LOVE HIM AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS."

II.
EARLY DAWN.
"THOU HAST HID THESE THINGS FROM THE WISE AND PRUDENT AND HAST REVEALED THEM UNTO BABES." Matt. xi. 25.
What solemn interest surrounds the dawn of immortal existence,--that precious portion of human life, the first four or five years, which may be termed the perceptive period, too often treated as a mere blank, in which nothing is to be attempted; when the soul is all eye, all ear, continually storing up in an almost faultless memory, impressions, which go far to mould the future character, and which reason, so soon as it is able, will certainly use as part of the material out of which it must form its conclusions! How much of the future depends upon the kind of influence to which the infant mind is subjected! Happily for Mary Burdsall these early years were carefully watched and guarded. The bold and uncompromising character of her father, and the gentle piety of her mother, secured to her a combination of influences particularly favourable to the development of moral and religious feeling. Lessons of truth and