CHAPTER VI.

Serene Sunsets.

"IN simple trust go forward Till every wish is still ;

The love of God thy Father

In heaven thy soul shall fill; There shalt thou fully rest, There be for ever blessed."

Р

I.

PHILIP HENRY.

II.

LEGH RICHMOND.

III.

SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON.

IV.

HAY MACDOWALL GRANT.

V.

BROWNLOW NORTH.

VI.

ISAAC PITT.

WAS

I.

PHILIP HENRY

AS born at Whitehall, on the 24th of August, 1631. His father had charge of the grounds surrounding the palace, and of the watergate, by which the king and his visitors went and came when leaving or approaching the palace by the Thames.

To this position of responsibility and comfort John, the father, had risen from the humblest circumstances. Born of a lowly parentage, and in a retired hamlet in Glamorganshire, he left his father's house while yet a youth, and with only a fourpenny-piece in his pocket, to push his way in the world. Reaching London he was fortunate enough to get into the service of the Earl of Pembroke. Soon after this the earl was promoted by Charles I. to the office of lord chamberlain, and the young Welshman fol

lowing in the train of his master rose to the position mentioned. Marrying Magdalen Rochdale, whom her distinguished grandson the commentator speaks of as "a virtuous gentlewoman, and one who feared God above many," John Henry regarded himself as settled for life and conscientiously gave himself to the duties of his daily calling.

Philip Henry being the only son of this devoted and godly pair, special care was taken with both his health and education. It was the study and prayer of his pious mother to lead him in earliest childhood to the Saviour, and to fortify him by the most painstaking instruction against the temptations of the times and the surroundings of his home life. Nor was her anxiety unrewarded. Although she lived not to see the field of his after-life waving with its rich harvests, she was allowed to see the seed, she had sown with tears and many prayers, germinating and giving promise of the fruit to be subsequently gathered from it.

No,

mothers seldom labour as did Magdalen Henry, in vain. Sooner or later the seed which they so sow springs up, and grows to maturity. Thousands can testify to the truth of this. Probably more men of eminence in the church, both in the past and in the present, owe their conversion to their mothers than to any other instrumentality. Let the fact be an encouragement to the mother whose eye falls upon this page, who longs and prays for the salvation of her children, and to whom their conversion would be as a crown of joy and the very elixir of life. You will reap if you faint not. God will not allow you to so travail and toil, intercede and weep, to no purpose. The effectual fervent prayers of a godly and consecrated mother avail much. God regards and honours them.

The companions of Philip Henry's childhood were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York; afterwards Charles II. and James the Second. How little did any one who saw the three boys playing at their various games