CHAPTER XV. Approaching Blindness

APPROACHING BLINDNESS 1804-1807

A great preacher—Arthur Young the younger goes to Russia—Cowper’s Letters—Mrs. Young’s illness—Dr. Symonds—Novel reading—Skinner’s ‘State of Peru’—Death of Pitt—Burke’s publishing accounts—Literary projects—Approaching blindness.

February 24.—The sins of a journal are like those of life, much offence and a little repentance, minutes applied and months neglected. Last night, for the first time in my life, I was at a religious conversazione. Mr. Fry has it once a fortnight.

Mrs. Wilberforce and thirty more, I suppose, began with singing a hymn, and then a prayer, and ended in the same manner; the subject discussed was Providence. Scott, Macaulay, and Fry were the only speakers except myself, who threw in a word or two in a bad manner and not in unison; but I went without preparing the temper of my mind, and it proved to me a mere temptation to sin, as everything is sure to do when we trust in our own strength and do not pray for divine assistance. I like the thing itself much, and the recollection since it passed has produced in my mind a degree of humiliation which might not have been in it had I not gone there. I wished to touch on the state of the King’s health, where the hand of God is so evident; but they would attend only to little and private things, and probably were right. They made every possible event, the most trivial, providential. Scott is a predestinarian, but impresses the necessity of attending to the means by which God acts as much as if the divine decrees were not universal. The next subject is Temptation.

May 22.—My dear friend at Bradfield writes me in a most melancholy strain, on the ill success of her husband’s farming. I doubt I shall lose largely by a scheme which was executed merely to keep him out of greater mischief.

The new Bishop of Bristol is in dress and manners much like what we call in Suffolk a leather breeches parson.

Somebody called on Mrs. Pelham, and found her lying on a sofa reading a novel, rouged as much as any Madame la Marquise. They thought she seemed to be too high flown to be asked to a sober party of whist. What a gradation of evil amongst the worldly even in the respectable (soi-disant) class.

An application from Phillips for another edition of the ‘Farmer’s Calendar.’ He printed 2,000 of the fifth, and 1,200 sold in a month; they will all be gone before it can be reprinted. I had 100l. for that edition, 40l. more for this six months after publication, and in future 25l. each succeeding one.

How grateful I ought to be, but am not, to God for a success which has smoothed many difficulties, and enabled me much to lessen, in assistance to other circumstances, my debts. The sale is an extraordinary one.

What would be with me the result of moral reflections and trust in human means, in the power of a vile heart to cure its own iniquities? I have a conviction amounting to sensation in its truth, that everything but looking unto Jesus is weaker than water—vain and frivolous. This is the grand consideration, result, and object of religion in the soul, all beside is wide of the mark and without power and efficacy. Oh, my God, my God! write these truths in my soul, impress them in my heart, that by communion with Thee I may by Thy grace be purified, washed, and cleansed from every evil thought. Blessed be Thy Holy Name for keeping me from acts of sin. Oh! have mercy on my mind and take away every thought of it.

I shall have to experience another temptation, and should be preparing for it. I have little doubt but Lord Carrington will be again President of the Board. He likes not me, and I shall be much more uncomfortable than I have been with Lord Sheffield; but such changes, if they happen, will be from the Lord, for nothing is so idle as for a Christian to suppose that anything takes place by chance.

I do not mean to leave town till the Woburn meeting, but I am restless, and want to get away. This is a common folly, and ought carefully to be checked. It is the spirit that wastes half a life, ever looking to a future moment and never enjoying the present, which is that alone that is truly our own.

There is not a more valuable lesson than to learn how to apply every portion of time to use, and not to suffer the expectation of, or waiting for, any future moment to make the intermediate ones tiresome or unpleasant. It is wasting life and time that is never to return.

Yesterday, at 7 P.M., I dined with Mr. Anson—a farming party: Duke of Bedford, Earl of Galloway, Earl of Albemarle, Lord Somerville, Sir Robert Lowley, Sir John Wrottesley, Mr. Coke, Mr. Motteaux, Mr. Child, Sir G. Pigot, Mr. Western, Mr. Wilbraham, all M.P.’s or in high life.

Nothing but a farming conversation makes the company of these people proper for me to have anything to do with; and that it is not to be conceived how little they know on the subject, considering it’s a favourite pursuit. Such great fortunes and a life of luxury and bustle and motion are hostile to every kind of knowledge; and the conversation abounds with information for those who watch for and have a memory to retain it, yet it demands a good deal of knowledge previously digested and arranged to make a due use of it. A splendid house, one of the best in London; magnificent furniture, plate, servants, wines, and everything, equal to 30,000l. or 40,000l. a year, but he has no such income.

I have—I think I have—no envy of these doings. Such situations are so hostile to the religious principle that ought to animate the soul, that I should think of them with fear and trembling. I hate parties, and my heart condemns me whenever I go to them, in which not a word ever occurs to give God the glory due to His Holy Name, which is sometimes profaned but never honoured, where Grace before and after meat is discarded. And this is a sort of denial of Christ which gives me no slight disquiet and remorse, and ought entirely to banish me from all such company; it works in me, and I cordially hope it will soon produce that effect, for the pleasure I receive is little and the offence to God I fear is much. ‘Come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing,’ is applicable to more cases than I have applied it to. I am determined to go only to Woburn this year and not to Holkham; four days of noise and bustle are too much, I will get away in three; but a whole fortnight is horrible. I will get to Cambridge by Saturday, and I hope Jane will meet me there to spend Sunday, and perhaps Monday, with Simeon, and make him promise to meet Fry at Bradfield. Yesterday and this day hurry, bustle, packing up, paying bills, and recollection on the stretch lest anything should be forgotten. Wrote to Cordell, the bookseller, to settle with me for the Irish Tour. It has been years out of print, and the last settlement in 1795. I have half the sale; 154 were then left, my half, 30l. at least, and it never came into my head before. Very careless indeed, and in money to receive! Such busy days are unpleasant because both mind and body are fatigued.

18th at Woburn. Came with Lord Sheffield yesterday. I detest this profanation of the Sabbath, but he urged me so to accompany him that I yielded like a fool. A great dinner, Lords Albemarle, Ossory, Ludlow, Duke of Manchester, Sir H. Fetherstone, Sir R. Pigot, the Wilbrahams, &c., twenty in all. Several apartments newly furnished, and many very expensive articles, clocks, &c., from Paris to the amount of 2,000l. Much done to the greenhouse, and everywhere a profusion of expense. The late rains have given a fine verdure, and the place in full beauty. Such a flow of worldly blessings as are seen in one of these very great residences makes me melancholy when I reflect on the immense temptation and dreadful responsibility that attaches. What have not these people to answer for if they forget the Giver in the profusion of His gifts? and where am I to go to find a great house and establishment with a society and conversation that shows the Gospel of our Lord to be held in reverence and affection?

This poor Duke of Bedford, whose nominal income is so enormous, will, I fear, involve himself with the same imprudence. Cartwright has built him a steam engine (700l.) for threshing and grinding: 12 per cent. interest in the least to be calculated, or 84l., and yet a one-horse mill, price 50l., would thresh all the corn that will ever be brought to this yard.

An extravagant duchess, Paris toys, a great farm, little economy, and immense debts, will prove a canker in all the rosebuds of his garden of life. The providence of the Almighty governs all, and will not permit an utter forgetfulness of Him to produce even the temporal happiness which is alone sought for.

I am tired of the whole, and long for the retirement and quiet of Bradfield after so many weeks of London, and this finishing of hurry and bustle. I would not have another week of it for a hundred pounds. What has a Christian to do with such scenes? How a person of fortune and the world can be one I know not. They are never cool, and have no time for reading or thought. It is madness to continue in such a state, but to travel 120 miles in order to enter a fresh scene of it, and perhaps within earshot of such a profane beast and fool as that Captain G. I sat near last year—this would be insanity. What a spectacle at Woburn was that miserably swearing profligate, Major B., of Sussex, at the age of eighty-one, sticking to the last moment to worldly dissipation, and utterly regardless of what is to become of him hereafter. Like Lord Lauderdale, who declared that he feared nothing in this world nor in the next either! These people call themselves Deists; I think they must be atheists, or they are utterly in contradiction to themselves. It is a sin, and ought to be repented of, to go into such company. I feel myself here, looking on the tranquil bosom of the Ouse, as having escaped from a multiplicity of temptations, and that this is the first moment of my summer holidays, quiet and alone. This morning I had a letter from Jane, by which I find it is quite uncertain whether I shall meet her at Cambridge. She asks my directions, but had she thought, must have known that she could not receive an answer in time. I hope to hear Simeon twice on Sunday, and much wish that she may be there, as I wrote before to request it; and she says she should like it of all things.

24th: Cambridge.—I dined here yesterday. Inquired for that great and good man, Simeon, but he was not to be in town till the evening. I walked behind Trinity and John’s, &c., twice—a delightful day. Wrote and left a letter for him; at nine he came, and will certainly meet Fry at Bradfield. Thank God! I shall hear him twice to-day and Mr. Thomason once, for I shall go thrice to Trinity Church. I mentioned Fry’s calculation of three millions of Christians; but he very properly thought it very erroneous. He thinks Cambridge a fair average, and in 10,000 people knows but of 110 certainly vital Christians—more than 150 can scarcely be from a seventy-fifth to a hundredth part therefore! There are, I am rejoiced to hear it, many very pious young men in the colleges.

Night.—I have been at Trinity Church thrice to-day. In the morning a very good sermon by Simeon, a decent one by Thomason, and in the evening to a crowded congregation a superlative discourse by Simeon on the twelfth verse of chapter iv. of the Acts: ‘There is no other name under heaven,’ &c. Vital, evangelical, powerful, and impressive in his animated manner.

Sunday, July 8: Bradfield.—This day se’nnight took the Sacrament with Jane at Bury, suddenly, and therefore without any preparation, and got there in the Lessons. The week has been vile and miserable. Fry cannot come, but had a letter from Simeon, he will be here to-morrow! O Lord, of Thy mercy give a blessing to his presence, that conversation and prayer with him may give a turn to my mind! Were it not for what I think a firm faith in the Cross of my Redeemer, I should think that I was almost in the jaws of hell. But if I perish it shall be looking at the brazen serpent. Fiery serpents innumerable bite; let me turn instantly to the Cross, and there see and trust to the blood of sprinkling. What should I have thought of this before my conversion? Is it true and saving faith now to think and feel it—or rather to know it in my understanding than feel it in my heart? I am full of apprehensions, and the only sign of spiritual life in me is some sense and feeling of my own iniquity and the plague of my carnal thoughts; but if they were truly a load to me, would not the Lord ease me of the burden?

10th.—Yesterday, Simeon came. His character singular. His piety—his strong expressions—his fervency in prayer—a powerful mind!

13th.—Simeon went this morning. I have been horribly negligent in not writing down many of his conversations. What he thinks of me I know not, but he spoke to Jane with great freedom and candour, and as became a good Christian.

His abilities are considerable, his parts strong, his ardour and animation uncommonly great. His eloquence great, and his manner impressive. His prayers admirably adapted to the cases of all who heard him. He came with a servant and two very fine horses, on which he places a high value. From his life and expenses must have a considerable income; for his preferment is only expense, and costs him more than he receives from it. His fellowship is as good as 400 guineas a year to him. He must have a very good private fortune, from some circumstances, as I judge, which he dropped in conversation. He went to Cambridge from Eton and became a Christian on the third day, now about twenty-five or twenty-six years ago. During all which time he has never doubted of his future salvation. He is remarkably cheerful and has much wit, or something nearly allied to it.

I wrote to N. H., requesting his pulpit for Sunday, but he refused it; and after church apologised, saying it was not from himself, but he was talked to.

Oh! for the dumb dogs of our clergy who will neither preach the Gospel themselves nor let others do it. I told him that my request was to him a safe one, for I asked, of course, only for a regularly bred clergyman, and who possessed preferment in the national church. Very unlucky! Symonds dined here, and his conversation never does any good. He explained his chance for salvation in the merits alone of Jesus Christ, but denies original sin. This seems a contradiction; I would not think so for a thousand worlds! How can he be sensible of what he wants in the blood of the Saviour without knowing the utter depravity of his heart?

Tuesday morning, C. Coke, of Holkham, Allen, and Moore called on me to see the farm, and would have me dine with them at Moore’s. Haunch of venison, &c. Mrs. M. young, and in the worldly sphere very agreeable; her dress horrid. She contrives to force out her prominent bust in a manner that must take no small attention in dressing, is very big with child, and thinly clad; such a figure is common in these times, but the fashion is contrived purposely.

Mr. Smirenove came last night to dinner, and brought Count Rostopchin’s snuff-box. It is turned in his own oak, lined with gold, and has a tablet containing the representation of a building dedicated to me. The inscription in Russian, A Pupil to his Master, set round with sixty-six diamonds. Query—Should not all such toys be turned into money and given to the poor? He was Prime Minister under Paul, and has 50,000l. English per annum.

On Monday I breakfasted, dined, and slept at Lord Bristol’s; Lady B. and her sister, Miss Upton, sung Italian airs till twelve o’clock at night. They were many years ago a horrible temptation, now [they are] a frivolous waste of time, but ever a bad tendency on the heart. Pressed me greatly to stay; but I was engaged next day to dinner at Gooch’s, and yesterday I dined at Betsy’s. All this visiting is very bad for my soul.

Friday I dined again at Lord Bristol’s, by desire of the Oakes, as they expected meeting none they knew, but there were several. Music in the evening, slept there; in the morning, at Bury, met Benjafield on justice business. He wanted to commit a woman for being a lewd woman, on the statute of King James, by which it can only be for a year; if this was executed, all the prisons in the county would not hold them, and the time is far too severe; nor do I conceive that the case comes within it. I declined, and desired they might be heard on Wednesday, as appeared the week before. I go on in repentance miserably, my heart is cold, and I am languid in devotion. Oh, could I sufficiently hate and abhor myself!!

November 2.—If I go ten yards from home it can be only into the world, and therefore I never move but for mischief. I have every post a packet of letters from Lord Sheffield, filling the tables and for many hours employment every day. There seems to be no great reason for apprehending any famine, or even such a scarcity as before, but the price must be too high for the poor, without being half high enough for the farmer: I mean of wheat, the crop of which is full as bad as it has been for ten years past, but there is a stock in hand which will keep it down.

December 30.—I went to London on account of the Smithfield Club and there received the first Bedford medal of the Bath Society for an essay on the Nature and Properties of Manures, there being four other candidates. At London also I dined with M. de Novosilikoff, a particular friend of the Emperor Alexander, who is here on a political mission of great importance.

Davidson, who manages the Emperor’s farm, and Smirenove were present; their plan at present is to have reports of their Governments made upon the same system as ours, of counties, and Mr. de N. talked much of the great advantage of my going. I would not offer myself, but said that the whole would depend on the sort of men employed. Since I came down I wrote to Smirenove, offering Arthur (by his own desire), provided the sum granted for the purpose was adequate.

De N. was out of town, so no answer yet.

The attention I give to all these worldly matters, though they do not sit at all close to my heart, yet occupy too much of my time.

I do not give enough to the far greater interests of the eternal world; and I have been for months past, and am at present, in a dead, sinful state, remote from the only God of hope and consolation.

His mercy to me is great, for I have life and health. I am not in hell; but I find a horrible difficulty in coming to God, and a deadness of heart which hurts my prayers and plunges me more and more in sin and offence.

O Lord, of Thy mercy listen unto me. Oh! look with compassion on my wretchedness.

1805. Jan. 30.—The 19th I came to London; the 23rd breakfasted with Mr. Novosilikoff, and made my proposals of terms on which Arthur would go to Russia, having before received a letter from Smirenove announcing an entire approbation in Mr. N. of my son for the expedition. The terms were that he and his wife should go by land, getting out hence the beginning of March, in order to be at Moscow the beginning of May; that is, if out a year he should have a thousand pounds, and proportionably for a longer time, and all his expenses paid to, at, and from Russia. He came into it readily, and when the conversation was over, Mr. Davidson, who was present, said, ‘Well, now it seems all settled, and it only remains to know where Mr. Y. is to be supplied with money for his journey.’ Mr. de N. said Mr. Smirenove would be directed to advance it.

Reflecting afterwards on this conversation, I thought that some admission of the terms in writing should be obtained, as in case of deaths or revolutions they might be questioned; I therefore wrote to Mr. de N., recapitulating the terms on both sides and begging to know if I was correct.

No answer was returned; but Lord Somerville, calling on me two days after, mentioned in conversation that be had recommended a Mr. Green, who had farmed in Normandy, and been seven years in a French prison, of which he had published an account, to Mr. de N. to go to Russia to survey a government, hinting at the same time his knowledge that my son was in contemplation also. He said that G. had breakfasted with de N., who was much pleased with him.

All this awakens suspicions in my mind that, combined with the silence of Mr. de N., make it apparently necessary to know how we really stand, and I determined to write to Smirenove requesting that he would speak to Mr. de N., as any uncertainty was unpleasant, while my son was actually arranging his farm, &c., for his departure. This I have now done, and shall send it before breakfast, for no answer is yet come.

I do not like the complexion of the business, but think it likely that Green speaking French, which will save the necessity of Jane going as an interpreter, and perhaps his taking one or two hundreds instead of 1,000l., may have induced de N. to think again of the matter.

I have prayed earnestly to the Lord that He would prevent the journey taking place if it would turn out in any way injurious to the state of their souls, putting the matter entirely in His Almighty hands, and determining to rest assured that if it does not take place, it will be the Lord’s will, and that I should be thankful for His interference to prevent it.

The government of Moscow which A. was to have done is thirteen times as big as Norfolk. It would take two years to do it well without any doubt. A. is much disappointed, for he liked the thoughts of the scheme much.

I threw out in conversation with N. that if the business of the Board would permit, and they approved it, I would go over in June, and stay till November to assist in the work; that I should ask only my expenses. He seemed much to approve of this, but it was mentioned only as a contingency. Here the matter rests. I shall know soon what the event will be.

Many things have had a very lowering aspect of late, the ‘Annals’ with Phillips are certainly at an end. They do not answer with him, and he has demurred at settling the account, with 100l. or more due to me. This will be a loss of 180l. a year. My plan is to print four numbers a year on my own account, for the sake of selling old stock; by this I shall lose 40l. more. In Ar.’s (Arthur’s) farm the rent will be sunk from last Michaelmas 20l. a year, and I am engaged to pay Noxford 20l. a year more tithe. This year the Exchequer annuity of 150l. a year ceases.

On the whole here is full 400l. a year loss of income, which will be very distressing if every expenditure be not pared down in a most economical manner. May the Lord’s mercy give me grace to be steady and determined in this matter, for it is a most important one. I have very little to suffer personally in the reduction, for the expenses do not run that way, but comforts must be cheerfully lessened.

Feb. 3.—No answer came from Novosilikoff; I wrote therefore to Smirenove, who replied last Friday that N. was gone to St. Petersburg, that he had replied to my letter, and was surprised that I had not received it; that he approved of all the contents of mine, and had left orders with him to supply money.

This I despatched to A., who was become very uneasy and impatient. So now the business seems concluded and the die cast, but may the Lord prevent it taking place if it is to be productive of evil to the eternal interests of either! I pray for this, may He hear my prayers. I have little notion of comfort in anything that is undertaken without consulting God, opening the business to Him, and begging His direction how to proceed. I have had a letter from Orbell’s friend, who agrees to my terms of letting Ar.’s farm, so, thank God, that is settled.

17th.—Many difficulties have occurred relative to a post-chaise for them. Brown has examined my old one and sent an estimate of the repairs, 56l. Smirenove approved of it, but his second advice is that it would not do. He proposed one of his, and letters backwards and forwards. But yesterday I found one at Holmes’s in Long Acre, built for a Mr. Lock to go to Malta, which will do exactly, and in which they may have bedding and sleep at full length; a journeyman said the price was 50 guineas. H. not at home, in the evening a letter, and 70 guineas named.

I got up as always at 4 A.M., and have been reading and praying. Fry last Sunday alluded to an apostate from the truth, and Wilberforce asked him who it was, saying that of course he would not answer if the question was improper.

It was Townsend, of Wiltshire, the traveller in Spain, who began his career quite in the style of Whitfield’s energy and openness of declaring his principles in the fields or in barns, &c. The Lansdown folks told him they could never make him a bishop with such conduct or such principles; upon which he dropped the whole, giving out to his friends that he only suspended his conduct and meant to resume it at a better season. That never came, and he has continued an apostate from all religion, and from having 200 communicants at his church, has now only two or three besides himself and his clerk.

This miserably constituted Board of Agriculture is ever in a dilemma when a new president is to be elected. Lord S. will keep it no longer, and he is in a difficulty to propose another. He has written to the Duke of Bedford, and I fear in a way that may make the duke suppose that Government approves of it. Lord Carrington I suspected intended to come in again, but he assures me that he would not.

March 3.—I borrowed of Mr. Wilberforce, Owen on ‘Indwelling Sin,’ to which are annexed two other essays on Temptation and the Mortification of Sin in Believers. The last work is incomparable,