wife of Mr Samuel Wilson, who, at the time of his marriage, was an employé of Messrs Grant, but afterwards, for more than half a century, a well-known shopkeeper in Ramsbottom till his death, in 1879, at the age of ninety-three years. During the time Mr and Mrs Wilson were in business, many a family, in the town and neighbourhood, did the venerable pair materially help to rear. Of few, at such an advanced age, could it be said so truly as of Mrs Wilson that "her eye was not dim, nor her natural force abated." With quite youthful facility, till near the close, she threaded needles without the aid of glasses, which, indeed, she had never needed. And, as the years glided round, she still, unaided, climbed the steep ascent of Holcombe Hill with the succeeding generations. Twice, during 1890, she picnicked on its summit, having ascended by the most direct and steepest path-that which is reached by way of Hillend meadow. Her minister called to see her on the day after her second ascent, and on asking if she felt tired, she said she did not feel much different from usual. Before leaving, they had their wonted season of prayer together. The little group embraced four generations. As on these occasions she almost invariably did, she concluded with a brief prayer herself. Soft-voiced, reverential, and impressive, it was this "The Lord bless you and your family, and keep you from all evil, for Christ's sake, Amen. The Lord bless me, and keep me from all sin, for Christ's sake, Amen." Faith, after all, is the true tonic of life. Mrs Wilson had not come thus far on her long pilgrimage without knowing something of the trials incident to the human lot. But, with the well-thumbed New Testament in her hand, and trusting that love which, having sacrificed for us, "Is as the very centre of the earth Drawing all things to it," and, moreover, never complaining of such things as "The weary weight Of all this unintelligible world," 1 our worthy mother, "content and cant," in gentle cheerfulness meekly lived what, six hundred years ago, Dante's peerless genius wrote, In la sua volontade e nostra pace-in the will of her Saviour and Lord she found unfailing peace. "Even to your old age I am He, and to hoar hairs will I carry you." Mrs Wilson passed away, ten days after entering her 92d year, on the 27th of March 1893. Her last brief prayers with us, near the close, were these-" May the Lord bless and keep us every night and morning, and accept of us for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." "May the love of God which passeth all understanding be upon us all for ever and ever. Amen and amen!" This, the last, was repeated while the writer held the frail and chilly hand to say for the last time, “Good-bye." And, softly as a wearied child falls asleep on its mother's breast, our venerable friend passed to her eternal rest. The sunset, like the long life, was calm and peaceful. 1 Wordsworth. THE CHURCH OF THE CHEERYBLE BROTHERS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. HE spiritual forces which produced the Reformation, and had been at work in England for several hundred years before the middle of the seventeenth century. Emanating from the contact of human souls through Holy Writ with the Eternal, such forces are not to be put down by the hostile agencies and instruments of time. Forfeitures and imprisonments, exile and slaughter, mutilations and martyrdoms, grappled with them in their representatives, and sought to bar their progress, but in vain. Once experimentally known, they cannot be permanently proscribed. They shed benign light, unleash human liberty, promote human progress, beget human happiness. There were, unhappily, nations which faced the terrible task of their suppression or extirpation-Spain with |