Personal Recollections

YOUTH.--A grandmother--Unfashionable taste--A bereavement--Changes-- Travels--Punctuality--Ocean scenery--False confidence--A storm--Wonders of the deep--Recklessness--An Arab steed--A fragment--Escapes-- Housewifery--Nova Scotia--Indians--Cosmopolitanism--Home

LETTER V.

IRELAND.--Oxford--Irishmen--The journey--The arrival--An escape--Dublin --St. John's eve--The dance--Paganism--Trials--Levying distress-- Convictions--Terrors--Awakened conscience--God's teaching--Joy and peace

LETTER VI.

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.--The church--Socinianism--Temptation--Metaphysics-- Athanasian creed--An epoch--My first tract--A new friend--"Hail Mary"-- Christian communion

LETTER VII.

KILKENNY.--A new residence--Another snare--Compromise--An apostate--"End of controversy"--The snare broken--Another attack--An argument-- Discussion--The result

LETTER VIII.

The dumb boy.--A pupil--Jack's commencement--Inquiry--A dilemma--Dawning light--Seasonings--A sunbeam--A soul born--A protester--Idolatry-- Faithfulness--Summons--Superstition--National character--Confession-- Infernal machinery

LETTER IX.

England.--The dumb boy--Jack's adventure--Departure from Ireland--Hannah More--A carnal politician--Treachery--Afflictions--Jack's progress-- Prayer--Mercies--A soldier--A home--False judgment--Tranquillity

LETTER X.

Sandhurst.--A proposal--A snare--An incident--Papal fulmination--Jack's petition--Happy caution--Perseverance--Zeal--Testimonies--A contrast

LETTER XI.

Separation.--Prejudices--Home--Forebodings--Danger--Trying scenes-- Queries--Awful contrast--Cadets--Retrospections--A visitation--Sympathy --True feeling

LETTER XII.

Employment.--Sabbath meetings--Boys--An event--Forgiveness--Prejudices-- The Irish language--St. Giles's--A project--The Irish church

LETTER XIII.

A sunset.--A termination--A sunset--Resignation--The red hand--Joy and peace--True wisdom--Sympathy--Earnestness--A dying protest--Sleeping in Jesus

LETTER XIV.

A removal.--An appeal--Irish schools--Literary labors--Antinomianism-- Conclusion

SUBSEQUENT LIFE AND DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

LETTER I.

CHILDHOOD.

I have given my best consideration to the arguments by which you support the demand for a few notices of events connected with my personal recollections of the past. That which has chiefly influenced me is the consideration, urged on what I know to be just and reasonable grounds, that when it has pleased God to bring any one before the public in the capacity of an author, that person becomes in some sense public property; having abandoned the privacy from which no one ought to be forced, but which any body may relinquish; and courted the observation of the world at large. Such individuals are talked of during life, and after death become the subject, I may say the prey, of that spirit which reigned in Athens of old, and from which no child of Adam is wholly free--the desire to hear and to tell some new thing. No sooner has the person withdrawn from this mortal stage, than the pen of biography is prepared to record, and a host of curious expectants are marshalled to receive, some fragments at least of private history. I wish I could dissent from your remark, that even godliness itself is too often sought to be made a gain of in such cases. Writers who are themselves wholly unenlightened by spiritual knowledge, and uninfluenced by spiritual feeling, will take up as a good speculation what must to them be a mystery, and wrong the subject of their memorial while they injure the cause in which he labored. Even among those of better understanding in the ways of truth, we do not often meet sound judgment, calm discretion, and refined delicacy, combined with affection for the departed and zeal for the gospel. Private journals are sought out, confidential letters raked together, and a most unseemly exposure made alike of the dead and the living.