not how dreadful, but how lovely is this place! this is none other than the house of God!"

There, in this sacred spot, and in the deep delight of such devout and blissful experience, is the very locality and atmosphere of that perfectly beautiful hymn which Cowper wrote, entitled " Retirement." There was the calm retreat; there the unwitnessed praise; there the peace, and joy, and love; there the holy discipline of communion with the Saviour, by which He prepared His servant to pour forth the gratitude of a redeemed spirit in strains which would be sung by the Church of God on earth till the whole Church sing in heaven. If all of Cowper's sufferings and joy had yielded but the fruit of that one hymn, it had been cheaply purchased. God ordained him. those sufferings, and gave him those seasons of mercy, that he might write it. But that was not the only fruit, though perhaps the most perfect, of such heavenly experience; and God was now preparing, not only the inward frame, but the external circumstances of His chosen child, for that unexampled, exquisite, and important work of Christian Poetry which He had for him to accomplish.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE UNWIN FAMILY.

CHAPTER VIII.

First acquaintance and domestication with the Unwin family-Removal to Olney, and intimate friendship with Newton-Cowper's active and benevolent religious habits-Composition of the Olney Hymns.

FOR

some months after he had taken lodgings in Huntingdon, he was very closely retired from society, having little more than the visits of his beloved brother from Cambridge, who, as it afterwards appeared, was himself, even then, blindly groping for the way of life, though not willing to acknowledge it. With him, as often as Cowper saw him, which was once or twice a-week, he conversed on the leading themes of the Gospel, though for five years the arguments and experience of Cowper seemed to have little effect upon him. Except these visits, and those of one or two acquaintances, whom Cowper playfully described in his letter to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, as odd, scrambling fellows like himself, he had little intercourse with the neighbours, but increasing communion with his God in Christ Jesus. With Him his solitude was sweet, and the "wilderness blossomed as the rose. "I am much happier," said he, in a letter to Major Cowper, "than the day is long, and sunshine and candlelight alike see me perfectly contented."

INTRODUCTION TO THE UNWIN FAMILY.

81

But God had still a sweeter change for him, and under the sanction and the power of prayer, by the direct guiding providence of God he was unexpectedly brought into an intimate friendship, which fixed the whole course and habitation of his future life. There had been settled for many years in Huntingdon an interesting and delightful Christian family, consisting of the Rev. Mr Unwin, a worthy divine, somewhat advanced in years, his wife, an accomplished, intelligent, and admirable woman, and their two children, a son and daughter. William Cawthorne Unwin, the son, was at this time about twenty-one years of age, and a student at Cambridge, looking forward to the ministry. Being irresistibly attracted, while in Huntingdon, by Cowper's appearance at church and in his solitary walks, he at length gained his acquaintance; and to his inexpressible joy, Cowper found in him a sharer in his own most intimate feelings of devotion, and one whom the Lord had been training from his infancy to the service of the temple. After their very first interview and interchange of hearts, Cowper prayed God, who had been the author, to be the guardian of their friendship, and to give it fervency and perpetuity even unto death. An introduction to the family immediately followed, and this was the beginning of that precious and invaluable Christian friendship with Mrs Unwin, which was to last through life, connecting the two in an existence of endearment so affectionate, so singularly intimate, yet so pure, so disinterested, so heavenly, that nothing can be found in mortal story to compare with it.

At the outset, Cowper thanked God for those Christian friends as his choicest external blessing, though as yet he

F

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REMOVAL TO OLNEY.

had no thought of any thing further than a friendly intercourse with the family as a neighbour. But after four months had passed in his solitary lodgings, he one day found his mind beclouded with darkness, and that intimate communion he had so long been enabled to maintain with God was suddenly interrupted. Almost as suddenly it occurred to him, and in a manner which made him ascribe it to the divine suggesting providence of the same gracious Lord who had brought him to Huntingdon, that he might possibly find a place in Mr Unwin's family as a boarder. A young gentleman who had been residing there as a pupil, had gone the day before to Cambridge, and Cowper thought it possible he might be permitted to succeed him. It shews in how sensitive and precariously delicate a state his mind then was, and how much he needed the soothing care and tenderness of confiding Christian friends, that from the moment this thought struck him, he was in such a tumult of anxious solicitude that for some days he could not direct his mind to any other subject. At length, after much prayer and no little conflict and distress in the fear and sense of unsubmissiveness to God's will, in case the blessing should not be granted, his heart was calmed, the negotiation was entered into with the Unwins, and he became the happiest inmate of their domestic circle.

Nearly two years ran on uninterrupted, in sweet social and Christian enjoyment and growth in grace, when Mr Unwin, the head of the family, was thrown from his horse, and most suddenly and unexpectedly hurried into eternity. This overwhelming affliction was followed by a change in the abode of the whole family from Huntingdon to Olney,

FRIENDSHIP WITH NEWTON.

83

the dwelling-place and scene of the pastoral labours of one of the most eminent men of God then living, John Newton; a man fitted to commune with, and guide, and bless the mind and heart of Cowper, in his progress on the way to heaven, even through the valley of the shadow of death. By the same divine providence that had so remarkably led them both thus far, the steps of Newton, at that time a stranger to Cowper, were directed to his abode a few days after the calamitous event of Mr Unwin's death. The proposal was then suggested for the removal of the residence of the family to Olney; and the thing having been resolved upon, Newton engaged for them a house near his own dwelling, to which they removed the 14th of October 1767. There Cowper spent near twenty years of mingled sorrow and joy; there first his poetical powers were fully developed; there he passed through unfathomed abysses of darkness and despair; and there, under the discipline of God's hand, and the guidance of God's grace, the most precious and perfect fruit of his genius bloomed and was ripened.

Of the providences by which the intimate friendship between Cowper and Newton was established, the latter beautifully spoke in his preface to the first published volume of Cowper's poetry, declaring at the same time his own estimate of the value of that friendship. "By these steps," says Newton, "the good hand of God, unknown to me, was providing for me one of the principal blessings of my life; a friend and a counsellor, in whose company for almost seven years, though we were seldom seven successive hours separated, I always found new pleasure; a friend who was not only a comfort to myself, but a blessing to