Excerpt
Recollections of departed excellence are always pleasant, often deeply interesting, and sometimes productive of the happiest effects. The delight we feel in tracing the successive stages of that pilgrimage by which the saints of the Most High have “passed into the skies,” is neither a faint nor fruitless emotion, but a healthful exercise of the moral sympathies. It purifies, while it elicits; the affections of the heart. As we trace the formation of their character, we are insensibly forming our own; and the observation by which we mark the development of their Christian virtues, is among the most efficient means by which we are provoked to their imitation.
Hence the inspired volume is not more a book of doctrines than a record of the piety of ancient believers. That Holy Spirit, under whose inspiration it was written, knew how to touch the springs of human conduct, and therefore incites us to the highest attainments of character by the influence of example. The names of the righteous are enrolled in its imperishable leaves, and their memory, after the lapse of ages, is still fragrant as the breath of the morning.
After the example of the sacred writers, every age of the church has preserved memorials of the wisdom and holiness of its own times. In some instances a service has thus been performed of inestimable value. Patterns of faith, of patience, of zeal, have been rescued from oblivion to be a stimulus to Christians in all succeeding periods of time. And in other instances benefits, though not equally extensive, yet substantial, have resulted from recording, in a brief memoir, the characters and actions of those who, not called to occupy prominent stations, have shed a sweet influence of piety upon the more retired walks of ordinary life.
The following pages are intended to preserve some short account of a Christian lady, who from youth to old age “walked in the truth;” and having become at length alike venerable in years and in piety, departed this present life with the glorious hope of a better.
Mrs. Peggy Waugh was born at Wallingford, A. D. 1747. At an early period of life her mind was brought under a divine influence; not, however, by the ordinary means of grace, nor by any solemn providence, but in a manner illustrating the force of scripture, and the sovereignty of that gracious Spirit by whom it was originally inspired, and is still savingly applied. Being present at a party where the evening was spent in festivity and worldly mirth, she was invited to join in the dance. This she had often done, for she was of a lively disposition, and her parents were gratified by her mixing in the gaieties of life; but in the present instance she felt herself unable to maintain the hilarity of her spirits. The cause of her dejection none imagined, and she was perhaps ashamed to acknowledge. While all was merriment around her, she became suddenly pensive. A passage of the word of God, pointedly in contrast with the spirit of the scene, had come with irresistible power to her recollection. It fastened upon her conscience:—it reached her heart. The music and dancing lost their charms; she sat in solitariness, though surrounded with company; the world’s fascinations appeared in a light in which she had never before seen them, and the salutary impressions of that evening remained unerased from her mind through all her subsequent life.
While she was yet young, her parents removed to Reading. Shortly after they had fixed their residence in that town, she was taken by a friend to the Baptist Meeting, where she heard the Rev. Mr. Davis. She was much interested in his discourse, and sought for opportunities to attend frequently on his ministry....