276 THE LEMON PLANT. 



dwelt on her character to an interested listener. 

 He said he should much like to meet with her : — 

 and they have met ! It is an overpowering 

 thought, what a numerous company are now as- 

 sembled in heaven, from among those whom I 

 loved on earth. Oh, that it might quicken me 

 more in following them, who, through faith and 

 patience, inherit the promises ! In no instance do 

 I, knowingly, embellish the portraits that I sketch 

 in these chapters ; and when comparing myself 

 with them, the immeasurable distance at which 

 they left me in the race, is not only humbling, but 

 alarming. We are too indolent : too ready to re- 

 gard with complacency our acknowledged deficien- 

 cies, and to rest in that knowledge, as though the 

 consciousness of standing still would serve us as 

 well as pressing forward in the race. Unless we 

 admit the Popish doctrine of supererogatory merit 

 — from which may the Lord deliver us ! — and con- 

 sider these dear children of God as having done 

 more than was required of them, we must needs 

 be startled to find ourselves doing so much less. 

 Neither is this a legal view : not one of those 

 chronicled in these pages, held any other doctrine 

 than that of salvation by faith alone, through grace 

 alone, as the free, sovereign, unmerited gift of 

 God ; but those who adhered to it the most tena- 

 ciously, were invariably the most zealous of good 



