brother is also to
give his reasons for quite separating. I have great faith God will not
let him fall; He will surely have mercy on him, and not on him only, for
many would fall with him."

[Footnote 1: _Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon_, vol. 1.
p. 36.]

IV.

FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS.

Lady Huntingdon at this period of her life was called upon to endure
some very heavy domestic griefs. She had to mourn for two of her sons,
George, aged thirteen, and Fernando, aged eleven, who died of small-pox.
They were both buried in Westminster Abbey. On October 13, 1746, she
lost her husband, who was carried off by an apoplectic seizure, in his
fiftieth year. The Countess had only just passed her thirty-ninth
birthday when this last great sorrow came upon her. She herself was at
the same time tried by a long and severe illness. The effect of these
repeated and heavy afflictions was to further develop her character, and
to increase the devotion and self-sacrifice with which she gave herself
to works of benevolence and to the extension of the Saviour's kingdom.
On Lord Huntingdon's death, besides having entire control of her own
means, she became sole trustee of the children and their fortune. In
regard to the latter she proved herself a good steward; the former she
devoted very largely to the evangelistic and charitable work in which
she delighted.

Early in 1747 she wrote to Dr. Doddridge: "I hope you will comfort me by
all the accounts you can gather of the flourishing and spreading of the
glad tidings. Oh, how do I lament the weakness of my hands, the
feebleness of my knees, and coolness of my heart! I want it on fire
always, not for self-delight, but to spread the Gospel from pole to
pole." And in other letters: "My heart wants nothing so much as to
dispense _all_--_all_ for the glory of Him whom my soul loveth." "I am
nothing--Christ is all; I disclaim, as well as disdain, any
righteousness but His. I not only rejoice that there is no wisdom for
His people but that from above, but reject every pretension to any but
what comes from Himself. I want no holiness He does not give me, and I
could not accept a heaven He did not prepare me for; I can wish for no
liberty but what He likes for me, and I am satisfied with every misery
He does not redeem me from; that in all things I may feel that without
Him I can do nothing.... To preach Christ and His blessing upon
repentance over the earth is the commission--t