joy in the God of my salvation.”  The 145th Psalm was also spoken of by him with great delight, and Dr. Watts’s version of it, as well as several others of that excellent person’s poetical compositions.  My friend who transmits to me this account, adds the following words, which I desire to insert with the deepest sentiments of unfeigned humility and self-abasement before God, as most unworthy the honour of contributing in the least degree to the joys and graces of one so much my superior in every part of the Christian character.  “As the joy with which good men see the happy fruits of their labours, makes a part of the present reward of the servants of God and the friends of Jesus, it must not be omitted, even in a letter to you, that your spiritual hymns were among his most delightful and soul-improving repasts; particularly those on beholding transgressors with grief, and Christ’s Message.”  What is added concerning my book of the Rise and Progress of Religion, and the terms in which he expressed his esteem of it, I cannot suffer to pass my pen; only I desire most sincerely to bless God, that, especially by the last chapters of that treatise, I had an opportunity, at so great a distance, of exhibiting some offices of Christian friendship to this excellent person in the closing scenes of life, which it would have been my greatest joy to have performed in person, had Providence permitted me then to have been near him.

The former of these hymns, which my correspondent mentions as having been so agreeable to Colonel Gardiner, I have given the reader already.  The latter, which is called Christ’s Message, took its rise from Luke iv. 18, 19, and is as follows: 

  Hark! the glad sound! the Saviour comes,
  The Saviour promised long;
  Let every heart prepare a throne,
  And every voice a song.

  On him the Spirit largely poured,
  Exerts its sacred fire;
  Wisdom and might, and zeal and love,
  His holy breast inspire.

  He comes the prisoners to release,
  In Satan’s bondage held;
  The gates of brass before him burst,
  The iron fetters yield.

  He comes, from thickest films of vice
  To clear the mental ray,
  And on the eye-balls of the blind
  To pour celestial day.[*]

  He comes the broken heart to bind,
  The bleeding soul to cure;
  And with the treasures of his grace
  To enrich the humble poor.

  His silver trumpets publish loud
  The jubilee of the Lord;
  Our debts are all remitted now,
  Our heritage restored.

  Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace! 
  Thy welcome shall proclaim;
  And heaven’s eternal arches ring
  With Thy beloved name.

[Note:  This stanza is mostly borrowed from Mr. Pope.]

There is one hymn more I shall beg leave to add, plain as it is, which Colonel Gardiner has been heard to mention with particular regard, as expressing the inmost sentiments of his soul, and they were undoubtedly so in the last rational moments of his expiring life.  It is called ‘Christ precious to the Believer,’ and was composed to be sung after a sermon on 1 Pet. ii 7.