l about one
hundred in close union with and considered as together forming her
Connexion. In the century succeeding her decease, while the number
vested in the trustees of the Connexion increased from seven to
thirty-three, the total number diminished to less than one half. Not a
few of those included in the latter half became Congregational Churches,
and remain in that fellowship up to this time. Some have been swept away
by modern improvements, and never rebuilt elsewhere. The steady pressure
of life and thought during the last half century has told rather against
the development of churches which stand apart from the life and
associations on the one hand of the Established Church, and on the other
of Nonconformity. But the mere enumeration of the chief chapels yet
remaining, either in the central or in special local trusts, is
interesting as an illustration of how the evangelising influence of Lady
Huntingdon and her preachers extended to all corners of the kingdom.
They are found at Bath, Bristol, Brighton, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Ely,
Exeter, Hereford, Kidderminster, Malvern, Margate, Norwich, St. Ives,
Cornwall, Rochdale, Swansea, Spa Fields, Tunbridge Wells, Worcester,
and Yarmouth.

X.

CLOSING YEARS.

Until the close of her long life of eighty-four years, Lady Huntingdon
retained much of that vigour of intellect which had marked the whole of
her career. In spiritual life also she continued to develop year by
year. In a letter written to an old ministerial friend on April 26,
1790, she says, "Here (in my heart) every wild and warm imagination,
intoxicated by pride and self-love, must end; and submit, not only to
learn of the poorest and most afflicted Man in our nature, but also to
find in Him, and in Him alone, a suitable relief for all our misery;
and, through the same medium, a free access to all divine and heavenly
wisdom, whenever a sense of our own evil renders us sufficiently
conscious of our wants. Thus faith, that faith which is the substance or
subsistence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, must
carry the day; and by it walking in the light, as God is in the light,
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin; while His heavenly
and Divine Spirit, daily carrying us forward, leads us experimentally
into those various states which He Himself has declared to be
truly blessed."

The decay of her bodily powers was hastened by the breaking of a
blood-vessel in November, 1