“Oh may my Guardian, while I sleep,
  Close to my bed his vigils keep;
  His love angelical distil,
  Stop all the avenues of ill! 
  May he celestial joys rehearse,
  And thought to thought with me converse!”]

[Footnote 3:  See Appendix I.]

CHAPTER VII.

DOMESTIC RELATIONS.

I meet not with any other remarkable event relating to Major Gardiner, which can properly be introduced here, till 1726, when, on the 11th of July, he was married to the Right Hon. Lady Frances Erskine, daughter to the late Earl of Buchan, by whom he had thirteen children, five only of which survived their father, two sons and three daughters, whom I cannot mention without the most fervent prayers to God for them, that they may always behave worthy the honour of being descended from such parents, and that the God of their father and of their mother may make them perpetually the care of his providence, and yet more eminently happy in the constant and abundant influences of his grace.

As her ladyship is still living,[*] (and for the sake of her dear offspring, and numerous friends, may she long be spared,) I shall not here indulge myself in saying any thing of her, except it be that the colonel assured me, when he had been happy in this intimate relation to her more than fourteen years, that the greatest imperfection he knew in her character was, “that she valued and loved him much more than he deserved.”  Little did he think, in the simplicity of heart with which he spoke this, how high an encomium he was making upon her, and how lasting an honour such a testimony must leave upon her name, long as the memory of it shall continue.

[Note:  In the year 1746]

As I do not intend in these memoirs a laboured essay on the character of Colonel Gardiner, digested under the various virtues and graces which Christianity requires, (which would, I think, be a little too formal for a work of this kind, and would give it such an air of panegyric as would neither suit my design, nor be at all likely to render it more useful,) I shall now mention what I have either observed in him, or heard concerning him, with regard to those domestic relations which commenced about this time, or very soon after.  And here my reader will easily conclude that the resolution of Joshua was from the first adopted and declared, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  It will naturally be supposed, that as soon as he had a house, he erected an altar in it; that the word of God was read there, and prayers and praises were constantly offered.  These were not to be omitted on account of any guest; for he esteemed it a part of due respect to those that remained under his roof to take it for granted they would look upon it as a very bad compliment to imagine they would have been obliged by neglecting the duties of religion on their account.  As his family increased, he