The Life And Ministry Of Richard Healy

Gospel Standard 1867:

Richard Healy, Of Hooby, Lincolnshire

Died at Oakham, Dec. 30th, 1866, at the house of his father-in-law, W. T. Keal, Esq., M.D., Richard Healy, late of Hooby, in the 41st year of his age.

It is not needful to give any account of the Lord’s early dealings with our departed brother, as he was enabled to fulfil a long-felt desire to do so himself, which will be found in the “Gospel Standard” for Feb. and March, 1866, headed, “I will Sing of Mercy and Judgment.” But a few circumstances relating to him may interest those who have read those pieces, and who felt soul union with him.

For some years previous to his marriage, he conducted a farm at A., for his grandfather, in which he probably might have remained the tenant ultimately, had not the grace of God been made manifest in his soul, causing a separating change in all things which affected his future life, and bringing him effectually out from the Church of England. These things, for some time, caused deep exercise of mind; but he was enabled to stand fast in what the Lord had done for him, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

He gave his experience before the church, at Providence Chapel, Oakham, and was baptized by Mr. Philpot, and received into church fellowship Oct. 14th, 1855. He continued a conistent member until his death, and was chosen a deacon about eighteen months before that event.

Some time previous to this, he had formed an attachment to Eliza, second daughter of Mr. Keal. She was a constant attendant upon the word preached, and had been the subject of some exercises of soul, which she had noted down; but nothing had been wrought in her to make it clearly manifest to herself or others that she was a partaker of grace. It caused him much trial of mind to be satisfied of this in his own conscience, before he made proposals to her; but with that deep regard to the Lord’s will and word which was so manifest in every step he took, it is believed that he dared not have entered into that sacred tie with a person of whom he did not feel at least good ground to hope. [This I have good reason to know; for he consulted me on the subject, and from what she had put down of her experience, and which we both had read, we were well agreed in our judgment that we had a good hope of her being a partaker of grace.—J. C. Philpot]

He was married to Miss Eliza Keal, April 30th, 1857, at the General Baptist Chapel, Oakham, by Mr. Philpot, which was lent for the occasion, Providence Chapel not being licensed. In her he had a most affectionate and diligent help-meet, and he knew how to receive and estimate such a favour; for he would sometimes say he thought none were so favoured in that respect as he was. They had five children, three of whom survive their father.

After some considerable trial of mind as to a house and business, he took a farm, called Hooby Lodge Farm, upon what is called poor laud; and such he really found it to be. He was aware that there would be need of great industry, and economy, and much labour to bring any remuneration out of it, or even to enable him to pay his expenses. In all the arduous work and varieties of farming he was most indefatigable and unsparing, that nothing might be wanting on his part to enable him to keep free from debt, and to obtain a consistent living. In order to this, he used much self-denial, and endured much bodily fatigue. Besides which, their residence, which was nearly re-built for them, was at least a mile from any village, in a very lonely neighbourhood, and in a locality which, there is every reason to believe, is very unhealthy. Thus they had to bear many privations, and to labour under great detractions from convenience and comfort; and as he could not remain to reap the advantages of his labour and toil upon the farm, he eventually sunk a considerable sum upon it. About the second year of his occupation, his barley crop, which previously looked healthy, received a blight about the time of earing, so that it did not produce more than about eight bushels per acre. [His father told me that he ought to have had £400 worth of corn the first year more than the farm produced.]

In 1860, a room was opened for the worship of God, reading the word and sermons by gracious men, and prayer, at a small village named Barrow, four or five miles from Hooby, where, and in the adjoining village, live several who are members of the church at Oakham; and as some were advancing in years, they greatly desired to have a place near home, where they might assemble on the alternate Lord’s days, when there was not preaching at Oakham. He and a brother member and deacon of the church at O. conducted the service alternately, still retaining their place in their order, to conduct the prayer meetings at O. Mr. Tiptaft and other ministers who came to O. have preached at B. sometimes on a week evening.

Mr. H.’s services were much valued by both these causes of truth. His earnest, heartfelt confessions of sin and the mystery of iniquity within, and his feeling petitions for strength against temptations, and the evils within and without which beset his way, will be long remembered by those exercised souls who heard him, and who felt that he expressed the feelings of their souls. He was free in conversation upon the best things, and greatly favoured in being led to enter into and enabled to express his view upon different portions of the word; and the mind of the Spirit was often opened to him in portions, which made his company and intercourse with him profitable. He was exceedingly kind, condescending, and brotherly towards the poor of the flock. He would go into the houses of the agricultural labourers at B., with whom he stood in church fellowship, and stay and converse with them upon the things of God and the exercises of their souls. One or two of them would then walk homewards with him, and their hearts sometimes grew so warm in the things which occupied them that they scarcely knew how to part. Occasionally he would invite them and their wives to spend a day with him, and they will long remember those days, and can testify that little else but conversation on vital things was brought forward amongst them. He was, indeed, jealous of anything else; and if a topic came up about the land, he would try to turn it to better things, alluding to the passing nature of all beside the soul and its inheritance in Christ Jesus.

In Nov., 1863, he had a very severe trial in the loss of his father, after a few days’ illness, an Obituary of whom will be found in the “Gospel Standard” for July, 1864. Their close earthly tie was doubly cemented by gospel bonds. He had watched, with an anxious and jealous eye, the work in the soul of his eldest son. He had mourned and rejoiced with him. He was also a wise and ready counsellor in all business matters, and this sad event threw more care, though it added to his temporal means.

But other trying events were soon to succeed. He had a ready mind and much discernment of character, a lively spirit naturally, and, no doubt, he needed heavy ballast. He was aware of the temptations to which these exposed him, and has warmly expressed how hymn 885 was his experience; and when first he met with it, he did not think his heart could have been so depicted as Berridge had done it. His land, under unwearied tillage, &c., had become more productive, and his landlord seized this as a favourable juncture to add £80 per annum to his rent, of which he speaks as follows in a letter written in answer to one who stood in church fellowship with him:

“Hooby, Dec. 3rd, 1864.

“You speak of feeling union to me in prayer. ‘As in water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man.’ I am foolish enough, at times, to think that such us yourself and others who are favoured with a sober exterior, are not such inward fools as I am; but, from your confessions, you feel your wretched heart as bad as I mine. I was on Sunday particularly pained and ashamed at the sight of my lightness, folly, emptiness, and trifling spirit, at times, and that I should be all this before and in the sight of that great and holy God, to whom o}l nations of the earth are less than nothing and vanity. I begged for a solemn frame, and I believe the Lord has granted my request, for a new trouble has burst upon me, of a temporal character, that has kept me so ever since. I feel I am in much danger, so to speak, of being turned out of my home, under circumstances, I might almost say, cruel. But it has driven me near to God. I feel I have no other counsellor. My trial is this, that I have such a desire to do the will of God, and fear lest I should act in the spirit of my own carnal mind, and so bring on the displeasure of the Lord. Nevertheless, I have some hope that my cries for guidance in the matter are heard, and that I shall be kept from doing wrong. I trust I can say that I am low, tender, and fearful before God; therefore have hope that the Lord will be merciful unto me; and direct me. It is more than a talking matter when we are really in a trouble, and must act in some way. What comfort I find in the Psalms, and what union, to David’s prayers: ‘Lord, show me the way wherein I should go; for I lift up my soul unto thee.’ If you can pray for me, you can help me. I went to A. on Thursday, and, for the first time, saw my dear father’s tombstone. I did not know what scripture was on it. When I began to read, how it spoke to my soul: ‘Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.’ Sweet feelings filled my heart for a little moment. I thought then, what can man do unto me contrary to his will?”

This circumstance exercised and tried his mind, more or less, at times. He expressed how deeply he felt the loss of his father’s counsel in the matter, as he was always an able and ready adviser with him; but his main desire was to know the Lord’s will, and have grace to do it; and he could take no step until he received further intimations of it, which were to be given him through most painful discipline. But his gracious Lord armed him, in a measure, by granting him, as he said, the desire which lay nearest his heart, next to his own soul’s salvation, and for which he hath waited upon him ever since the thoughts of his heart were led to an object for his partner in life, viz., that he would make it satisfactorily manifest that she was a vessel of mercy, and grant him union of soul with her on the best things.

In the early part of last summer, it was laid upon his wife’s mind to go before the church at O., tell them how she had been led, and express her desire to join them. She gave her experience at their church meeting, on June 24th last, spoke of convictions as long as 22 years back, which, being naturally a very still person, she had kept chiefly to herself. The account she gave was well received. She was unanimously received by the church, and was baptized by Mr. Knill, on July 24th, with three other persons. Many of the church and congregation thought that the Lord had a special object in thus uniting him in marriage with this family, and bringing them both into church fellowship amongst the people and cause of truth, of which her parents had been the chief stay and support from its commencement in 1831, and which took its origin, instrumentally, through the occasional ministrations of that dear man of God, the late Mr. Tiptaft, whose memory is blessed amongst them; and many can testify that the word through him was accompanied with power to their souls. The robust and healthy appearance of this happy-looking couple would sometimes call forth a temptation to envy in some, and in such as were bereaved of their partner in life; and, judging after the outward appearance, it might be hoped that the Lord had raised them up to stand at the head of the cause, when in the course of nature, their aged parents should be removed from amongst us.

About three weeks after his wife’s baptism, she complained of pain in a small lump on her right breast. (She had not been well for some time, having had much rheumatic pain for several months, which had partly disabled her left arm.) At that time she consulted her father and brother, the latter being in the medical profession in this town. They both were of opinion that it was a tumour of a malignant character, in which judgment they proved right. Her poor husband was deeply distressed at the prospect before them; and as the progress of the complaint became very rapid, he determined to take her to London, and have the first skill of the faculty upon her case. But his perplexity was great and most painful as to the best course and person to consult, “Whilst in this state of mind, he wrote as follows:

“My dear Mother, I need hardly say what a trial this is to me. Sometimes, under the keen feelings of nature, it seems almost more than I can bear. At times the burden seems for a little moment off my mind, though in that there seems a hardness that condemns me; yet there is a mercy in it, that we are so constituted, or rather that the Lord should so deal with us, that we be not swallowed up of over much sorrow. He knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust. I seem to have turned over another leaf in the path. To all my perplexities, trials, &c., there is added bodily affliction. It is a solemn teacher, and discovers to the soul how weak is my faith, how strong unbelief; for I go on picturing one dark cloud after another, till I see myself a wreck, as it were, in providence and grace. The Psalms are the food of my soul. I know now what it is to cry for daily, ah, for even hourly strength to bear my burden. These lines are upon my mind:

“The joys prepared for suffering saints 

Will make amends for all.”

On 1st Sept. he took his dear wife to London. Dr. Paget, whom he intended to consult, and also several other men of eminence, were out of town for change at that season. Being little acquainted with London, the absence of persons whom he had thoughts of consulting, added to his anxious state of mind, and brought him into great difficulties. But, through the influence of a friend, admission was obtained for her into an institution for invalid ladies, in Harley Street, under the first patronage, and attended by the best skill of the faculty. In this she remained for two months; and for the attention received there they had great reason to feel grateful to God, though it was not his purpose to work a cure through the means.

Mr. H. was rather subject to derangement of the liver, which came on upon his first journey to town, and it may be said that he was never wholly free from it during the remainder of his life. His journeys to town, taken by day-ticket, causing him to leave his home early in the morning and return late at night, driving to and from a distant station, leaving at five o’clock and returning sometimes not before two or three o’clock in the morning, and in a depressed and weighted state of mind, and the pressure of business at home altogether told seriously upon his frame; and, as winter approached, and the heavy rains made the roads to his lonely home very bad, he could sometimes scarcely bear the ride over them, and it would cause severe internal pain, which would last for some days. Still his mind was so absorbed in the affliction of his dearer self, that if any friend urged upon him care and self-consideration, there was no room for it.

During Mrs. H.’s stay in town they had many a time of refreshing together, under gospel ordinances, at Gower Street, and by extracts from his letters we shall best gleam some idea of the alternations of his mind between hope and fear, gloom and despondency, and occasional gleams of light through the dark cloud, and how his mind was led and exercised under the weighty affliction, and her absence from him under such painful circumstances:

“London, Sept. 10th. 

“Dear Mrs. Keal,…We walked twice to chapel yesterday and heard dear P. I liked him greatly in the evening, from Isa. 41:10. It was really comforting and strengthening to us both. As Huntington says, he was a son of thunder in the morning and a son of consolation in the evening.”

“Hooby, Sept. 19th, 1866. 

“My dear afflicted Wife, I received intelligence this morning that the surgeons consider that, from the state of the skin, there would be no hope of success in your case from an operation. I could only say, “I am so troubled that I cannot speak.” O what a stroke it was to me! My first feeling was, O my sin! is it in wrath? am I a deceiver? The Lord soon drew near to me, as it regards this, with these words:

“’Not in anger,

But from his dear covenant love!’

‘O,’ I thought, ‘what a way to show covenant love!’ The Lord seemed gently to rebuke me: ‘Are the consolations of God small with thee?’ as I felt nothing could ever heal the wound. O may I be kept from rebellion against his sovereign will! How I perceive nothing can stand against his firm decrees. ‘He is of one mind, and none can turn him; he performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with him.’ I read Ps. 46 this morning; O that I could walk in obedience to verse 10: ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ But we must pass from all that we can now see should have been done, and flee unto our only refuge in time of trouble. How this brings me back to those words that were spoken tome at the very beginning, as if concerning you:

“‘The joys prepared for suffering saints, &c.’

The Lord grant us some sweet union and communion together in that glorious kingdom, where there is no separation, no sorrow, no pain, no tears, no griefs. What a foundation I feel it is under me at this time that one so dear as you are to me, and whilst as regards weak nature, it rends the caul of my heart to contemplate the future in this life, yet I shall know it will be well with thee for ever and ever. I commend thee to the Lord with many prayers.

“‘Your affectionate Husband, 

“E. H.”

“Hooby, Sept., 1866.

“My dear Wife,—…I never arrived so fully at that most blessed point concerning your eternal safety as yesterday. I doubt myself now much the most. Indeed, I doubt not you. What a mercy it is that you are so sweetly supported by your almighty friend. How my poor prayers are going up to him to be husband, father, and friend; and at times a sweet feeling of access is granted me. I had a comfortable season this morning. I opened upon a sermon of John Vinall’s, where he was speaking of the Lord raising Lazarus, and said how Mary said to the Lord, ‘He whom thou lovest is sick. We should go to him likewise and say, ‘He or she whom thou lovest is sick.’ How blessed it was that I could do so, and plead that with him. It raised my head a little again. This is the way; sometimes cast down and then hoping in the Lord. He further said, ‘When we conclude from sight and sense, that is wrong.’ This did me good, I had been doing that. The Lord seems at this time very near and precious to you. I was melted, and have read it again with the same feeling. Your opening upon Matt. 21:22: ‘All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,’ it did indeed seem very suitable to your troubled soul. The Lord can do all things for you. 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Sept. 1866.

“My very dear Wife, My thoughts are almost always with you, and I am much engaged in sighing and crying to the Lord on your behalf. I feel my love for you more and more, and hope it is not sinful or idolising. We are told to love our wives, as Christ loved the church. This gives no license for creature love going beyond due bounds. What would my case be, and, alas! what yours, if there was no well-grounded hope that our union is not a time one only, but an eternal one. It is in affliction we learn God’s lessons, which are set forth in his word. We are to weep with those who weep. How little is this precept regarded, and the untried are readier with their discernment, as they consider it, to see the needs be for the trials of others, than to obey that sweet precept. I have had an insight into this more that ever I had. When we are in affliction, it is good to be alone much with the Lord. There is no other resource. Human fingers are, for the part, too hard to touch our tender sores; but our loving Lord has a heart to sympathise with and pity us. He knows we are dust; so, my dear wife, don’t be looking here and there for pity. Let thine eyes look straight before thee, with many cries unto him that is able to comfort and save. If ever we needed to have our lights burning, it is now. May you be enabled to press hard after Jesus, for a word from his blessed lips to stay up your tried and sometimes sinking soul. O what a mercy to have a God to look to; we may, in a measure, apprehend the dreadful destitution of those who are without hope and without God in the world, by the feelings of our souls. 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Sept., 1866. 

“My dear Wife,…What a mercy that the Lord does not withhold his mercies because our askings are so imperfect; but he will be inquired of by the house of Israel to do these things for them. Importuning prayer is the best means I know of for all our wants. I hope you are living with some nearness to the throne in this way. May the God of all our mercies be better unto us than all our fears, and sanctify this affliction by bringing us to know more of him, and have brighter evidences that we are born from above. I trust you will be kept sober and prayerful, not be thrown off the rails, as it were, by indulging in carnal conversation. It may not be sinful in a sense, yet not spiritual. If we get away from the throne, there is getting back, which is not easy. 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Sept. 22nd, 1866.

“My dear Wife, As I am a little more comfortable just now, I had better write whilst so. What a trying part I find it not to be able to submit to the stroke of his rod. How impossible in affliction to say, ‘Thy will be done,’ unless the Lord work submission. I have been reading Job 1 and 2. O what a wondrous power in grace that, with such afflictions, he should be so sustained. How the good Lord supports you! What cause for thankfulness in that. How much, more bitter our cup might have been. I have been comforted with a good hope that my poor prayer for the prolonging of your days is of the Lord; if so, it will be answered; and, if called to part before this poor weak flesh is willing, what a little moment it will be before we shall meet again to be with the Lord for ever. How painful it is to me that the consideration of that should not silence every murmur and self-pitying feeling. I have been a hard judge upon others when I have seen them so. Now that I have in feeling to learn the bitter lesson for myself, I can understand their weakness. What changes the soul is subject to, and how quickly they come sometimes. We are favoured to draw near to God with feeling access, and soon afterwards sullen and incapable. Then our unbelief casts, as it were, the hope we had away, and we conclude it was but natural. How the Lord brings into the mind portions of the word which explain our feelings. In one of my bitterest times these came to me: ‘He hath compassed me with gall and travail.’ I felt it to enter in; now in ease I could not have done so. Then how thankful I am for the dark side of experience to be traced out in the word. It makes me say within myself, ‘I hope, then, I am not out of the path.’ I feel it very much not to be near you, to talk one to another about eternal things, instead of writing. This morning I was reading in Job as usual, chap, 5, especially verses 8 and 9. I was quite affected, and replied, ‘Lord, art thou not the same now? Canst not thou do great things and unsearchable?’ I felt a nearness and pleading that I trust was real. I said, ‘Lord, I must keep coming after thee until thou thrust me away; I cannot keep away from thee, I am like the woman with the issue, pressing after thee;’ and I pleaded again the words he spake to you, and when I find you did the same, I see how we are meeting at the throne. And have we not hope in him? Yes, bless his dear name! I cannot give up hoping in him. Follow on, follow on. He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever!

“‘He loves to hear his children plead,

And blesses them indeed.’

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Sept. 24, 1866. 

“My dear Wife, I have at times, and this morning, 4 o’clock, such a season of urgent petitions to the King of kings, that I cannot believe but that his bowels are moved for us in a measure of mercy in this trying dispensation. He seems to suffer me to draw near, nothing doubting; and this makes me fear there may be heavier tidings to try this hope; and the physicians say they can do nothing. If even so, my dear wife, don’t despair.

“’Let the danger make thee bolder.’

His arm must have all the praise. I opened upon hymn 173. Verses 1 and 3 were especially sweet, and the very language of my heart. In these trying cases, we have little respite from the burden in all its weight, if not delivered or sensibly blessed. There is that unseen hand supports,

“’That bears the world and all things up.’

I seem to have in you, in little favoured moments, richer enjoyments than ever natural love rendered. Now that you are removed, we can freely open heart to heart about the blessed things of eternal life. You know what little spiritual communion we had before this affliction, and what a pain it has often been to me; but we now feel it is to be so no more for ever. I am brought down now to the owning of all things as being in God’s hands. My soul is indeed alive unto God. I am, as it were, turned out of the sluggard’s bed, where we are so apt to get and become unfruitful unto God; and it is for this he afflicts us, to teach us more of himself, and in regard to his own glory. How surprised I am to find my feelings so calm and supported about leaving here. I had pictured my feelings so different. If I am deceived, I am deceived; but I do feel I am. doing the will of God. I was struck last night in reading Prov. 3:5: ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding, &c.” How I found I must give up my plans about the mere things that are temporal, and leave it with God; so, if you or any one else were to ask me what I am going to do, all I could answer is, ‘I don’t know; the Lord knows. I feel I am falling into his hands, and, I trust, in living faith, for him to do with me what seemeth him good.’ From one reason or another I can feel no heart to seek after another farm at present; not that I mean to say, I would take no land any more. O no. If I felt it was the Lord’s will, I would to-morrow; but I have had such disappointments, and, as it were, the labour of my hands so taken from me, that between the Lord and my soul there is a crook in the matter, which he alone can straighten. These are my present feelings; and you know that first with me in these things stands a desire to do all in my power to contribute to your comfort, body and soul. By taking a house at O., you will be near to the means of grace, and amongst our relations and Christian friends. I feel the object is good; as to any diminution of our means, we must leave that and the future in his all-wise hands. Mr. Knill confirmed me, by speaking about trusting God, just as I am endeavouring to do. 

“R. H.”

“P. S. As I was employed yesterday, these words came: ‘He will lead the blind by a way they knew not.’ I am sure my best plan is to have no plan as to what I shall be or do; but fall like a child into the hands of the Lord, and he will provide. I have planned so much, and God has upset it, that I am sick of my own ways.”

“Hooby, Tuesday night.

“My dear Wife, How much easier my days pass when my soul is alive toward Jesus Christ, and I can get some sweet theme concerning him and his great salvation, and for a little moment look beyond all this trying scene to that blessed state we read of, ‘Where sighing and sorrow shall flee away, and God shall wipe away all tears from off all faces;’ and that ‘everlasting joy’ (O what do those two words contain!) ‘shall be upon their heads,’ but when upon the head of the wicked Ms wrath will be poured out for ever and ever; and, but for grace, we should be amongst the latter. Does it not really make one feel we should say in all things, ‘Thy will be done’ to have a well-grounded hope of such a reward? My soul has been led to see latterly how scarce a religion, panting and hungering after the Lord, is, to have his presence in the soul. Such desires are scarcely kept alive in affliction; and what are we in ease? The Lord Jesus looks down into his garden, ‘to see if the vine flourish.’ He knows when the vine becomes cumbered with thick clay, and is sickly. Then a trying hour is sent, some digging about, and we enter a little into Hezekiah’s case: ‘O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.’

“R. H.”

From the commencement of his wife’s affliction he regarded it as conclusive in the matter which had been pendant in his mind for nearly two years, that he should leave his farm; and, consequently, he sent his landlord a notice about this time. He felt that he could never take her there again, it being between seven and eight miles from O. He therefore took a house at that place, where she could hear the word preached, and be amongst the people with whom they were united; and though he afterwards said he was often tried as to the step he had taken, and the thought of selling all belonging to his farm, and having no immediate prospects of business, yet on every return to the place he had not a desire contrary to getting away from it. He had always been accustomed to an active life, and with his wife and children he had so truly enjoyed his domestic home, and its very loneliness, though it detached him from much intercourse with Christian friends, had more endeared it to him. To a friend at O., to whom he one day in conversation said that the Lord had so opened and blessed the word to his soul, since he had brought him into the affliction, and granted him such nearness of access unto himself, that he could almost welcome the affliction, he wrote as follows:

“Hooby, Oct. 3rd, 1866.

“My dear Friend, The Lord has favoured you with a feeling heart for those in affliction. I trust that your burdens, desires, and prayers for us are of his stirring up, for I suppose you cannot command them. Well, I was not long before I was sorry for saying what I did in your house about the life in my soul, for soon a very sensible decline came on; and I had to learn another painful lesson, viz., that all my sorrows and perplexities were not sufficient to subdue iniquity. I thought, O! Cannot all these trials keep this monster out? No! I found they could not. Sin is the deadly curse, the very life blood of our fallen nature. I never had such a view of it as a curse. It is that which has caused all the suffering in the world. But for it I might have had my dear wife, and you your dear husband. ‘Othou hideous monster, sin,’ &c., and this made me feel union in particular to a few words in your letter, where you say, ‘O the power of sin.’ O, then, I thought, it finds her. Well, I can, I hope, say in a measure, that affliction is not all sorrow. I have some favoured moments, and get near to the blessed Lord, and he lets me tell about my troubles, and say to him, ‘Lord, who saved me but thou? Who delivered me from distress that all men could not? Who saved me from despair but thou? Then how can I give up hoping in thee? Whether thou regard me or not, I’ve nowhere else to flee.’ Then my burden seems lighter for a little time; but when the beasts creep forth again, I’m like Jacob exactly, and cry in my heart, ‘All these things are against me.’ I thought the morning sermon very close and searching, Hosea 14:1, 2. Mr. K. brought to my view some of my black spots. I had to confess, Guilty! guilty! 

“Your very sincere Friend, 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Oct. 11th, 1866. 

“My dear Wife,… How sweet I felt it to be sitting down to the ordinance of the Lord’s supper with you at Gower Street. I took it as an earnest that we should one day sit down together with Christ in his kingdom, feast upon him in his presence, and go no more out. If our minds get no consolation here, where can they? O that Jesus would draw you near to himself. It is my prayer for you, and I cannot but hope that he has some mercy in store for you, as it regards your bodily sufferings; but how soon our hands of prayer grow slack. Your letter has stirred me up again to supplicate his face. I had a good day yesterday. I felt near Jesus; so I know what that can do for you. I am a little better, but don’t get on in health; of course I have in various things much weight upon my mind.

“Yours, &c., 

“R. H.” 

About the 20th of this month, having tidings of his poor wife’s extreme and almost overwhelming sufferings from the treatment of her case, [This was the injection of some strong (acetic) acid into the breast] he went, in great anxiety of mind, to see her, picturing things, he said, as bad as he could. When he arrived, he found the pain greatly relieved; and the Lord drew nigh and favoured him with a heart full of grateful thanksgiving to his holy name, and gave him such a day of access unto him in prayer, and such an opening up of his blessed word, as he said he had not been favoured with before, if at all, since the Lord first delivered his soul. Prov. 22:19-21 was opened up to his soul in a very blessed manner. His widow speaks of it as a day of prayer and praise with him, and says, “He kept expounding the word to me, as the Lord opened it up to him; and he often afterwards referred to it as that sweet hill Mizar, which the Lord gave him in London.”

“Hooby, Friday night.

“My dear Wife, I received yours today, and am grieved to hear of your additional suffering and uselessness of the rheumatic arm. My unbelieving heart seemed to say within me, ‘Why does the Lord see this needful also?’ But you know how wrong this is. It is replying against a good and holy God. May he pardon these hard thoughts of him. You will see I am more like you now, in a low, cast-down state. O how different to my state in London on the 21st, that favoured Lord’s day. It was as if my Burden-bearer lifted all off my shoulders for a time. As I awoke this morning, and thought on my different state, I got some little support from these words: ‘Though we believe not, he abideth faithful,’ &c. He does not alter his purpose because we are faithless to him. What a mercy that is! Nevertheless, I have felt some precious cleaving to that which the Lord did for me at that time, and still have a good hope there is mercy on the way for you in his appointed time. But yours is a trying path indeed; and most deeply do I sympathise with you. You know, as well as I do, where comfort only can come from; but the heart sinks, despair makes head, and we feel hardly to have strength to cry for help. I daily beg that the Lord will give you sleep. My first cry when I awake is, ‘O Lord, have mercy upon her.’ None but the living family know what it is to be strong in the Lord and utterly helpless in themselves. Pardon such a poor letter. Love covers all; and never did any love each other better, body and soul.

“Yours, &c.,

“R. H. 

“Hooby, Oct. 13th, 1866.

“My dear Christian Friend, I know you will be anxious to hear about dear E. I feel it indeed acutely that she should be suffering so much without having any comfortable belief that there will be the compensation of corresponding benefit. But I know not what to say. Means must have a fair trial; the issue is with the Lord. How trying is the path that appears almost all darkness; but it is all light with the Lord, and will be so one day with us, though to the feelings it appears impossible. As to myself, sometimes I get on easy, when my soul is taken up with some sweet theme about the ever-blessed Lord. What a wonderful Saviour he is! I feel as if my heart has been a little enlarged at times with views of his wonderful salvation, and I have felt him very precious to my soul. Then, again, these sweet feelings are gone, and I become a mass of evil. This morning I groaned under the evils of my nature, whilst I felt like one desperate against myself. I never had such an entrance into Solomon’s words, where he says, ‘Then I praised the dead more than the living,’ for they have done sinning against the Lord. I felt how much happier is their state than ours who are living to sin against God. I was just as if I could wish that my end was near, that there might be a finish to the list of my sins. How blessed it will be to sin no more. I think I had got a little lifted up with good frames; so must come down again,

“Yours very sincerely in the Truth, 

“R. H.”

He had received a help in hearing Mr. C. at Gower Street, particularly in his speaking upon hope as a night grace:

“Hooby, Thursday.

“My own dear Wife, I received your very welcome letter yesterday. What a blessed thing is hope, hope in our God. How much our friends are cheered as well as ourselves that we can now set our foot on that ground, concerning you. I know we must not travel faster than God. But the voice of encouragement makes the soul press on. You know that we both have a word to hang upon. O that we may press after him. His bowels of mercy are so great; he is such a compassionate Saviour. Don’t you sometimes put, as it were, things together and hope; look at one thing and another, leadings in providence, and words to the soul, &c.; what we have once put away in a trying hour take up again in a hopeful hour, and so gather together the fragments, and make out of them, as it were, a good hope in the Lord’? I do hold on that word of promise you had: ‘All things whatsoever ye shall ask,’ &c. Plead it with him that said it, for he hath told us to ‘put him in remembrance.’ It is to show us that he loves importuning prayer, the prayer of faith, telling him he is able to perform. What father can resist the plea of a promise made to his child? But you say, ‘Did it come from the Lord?’ Well, did any power accompany it at the time that you cannot command again yourself? 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Oct. 31st, 1866.

“My dear Wife, We had the baptizing last Lord’s day, as usual. It. was very well conducted. When Mr. K. gave out the morning text (Dan. 2:22): ‘He revealeth deep and secret things,’ &c., I thought it was so applicable to my darkness and perplexity, that I said, ‘O! The Lord may be about to speak and clear up my path;’ but he took another drift, which was also very good. He was excellent in the afternoon: ‘Who can forbid water?’ &c. What a mercy I felt it this morning that there is ever at the right hand of the Father that glorious Mediator and Intercessor; so that our deeds do not bring on our heads what we deserve.

O! The finished work of Christ’s salvation is indeed more learned and prized by seeing, if aught was left to us to do, we should come short at last. I once felt as if I could not behold these things any plainer or know them any better than when I first received them in mercy; but I appear to behold their blessedness more as I see more and more my own inability to perform anything good before God. How blessed to feel a good hope that our life is hid with Christ in God. I do hope you will have strength given from on high to enable you to bear what is before you. Nothing else can do it. Ply the throne with sighs and groans for help in time of need. Plead the promise, plead his blood and merits, sufferings and death, and (I say it in all reverence) God cannot be deaf to thee, for he has promised that such pleadings he will hear. 

“R. H.”

“Hooby, Nov. 23rd, 1866.

“My dear Wife, I have been very dull and burdened most of the week, weighing up matters, wondering whether the ground under me is good as to the steps taken. I feel that the hand of the Lord is in them, for surely they are not paths that flesh and blood would have chosen; so I hope, even in the dark, that there will be a clearing up of matters in God’s good time. Still it is very trying when one has so much that the Lord alone can do for us, to feel a spirit of prayer not so lively as we could wish; yet some of the groans and sighs that go up under the pressure of our trouble may have as much prayer in them as in seasons of freedom. It is a trial indeed when we know there must be an appearing of the Lord, or that confusion of face must be our portion. What heart- sinkings I have, at times, under the feeling: ‘O! If he should never answer me in this thing! What am I? And it is no small part of my trouble to be under this feeling almost hourly: What pain my dear wife may be suffering at this time! I even feel thankful (painful as it is) that I am not always with you, for to witness it would wear me away.

“R. H.”

On Nov. 25th he came to Oakham and heard Mr. K. in the morning from “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.” He finished the verse in the afternoon, but our dear friend was too poorly to stay for the afternoon service. He called upon a friend, and it was remarked how weighted his countenance looked, and how altered in appearance he was. He said some things that had been spoken were a help to him, and added, “What is it for? O! Why has the Lord seen fit to deal thus with me?” Upon it being said to him, “It is for the trial of your faith;” “O, then,” he said, “it will be precious in the end, being found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus. Christ.”

“Hooby, Nov. 27th, 1866.

“My dear Friend, I received your very welcome letter last evening, and can say it really cheered me a little. I thought, if one of the Lord’s dear people has so much sympathy and care about me, it may be the Lord has also. I have been in dark and trying paths, chiefly since Lord’s day. It is no small thing to obtain an answer to prayer. I have this week been, as it were, doubly tried, not only an additional burden, but the lacking of a spirit of prayer to pour out my soul unto God, a sort of sullen feeling of backwardness to pray, and I have felt what an evidence it is against my obtaining an answer. I have been, indeed, more searched and tried as to the ground of my hope than any other tune I know. I felt very unfit to die. Thank you for the outline of the continuation of sermon in the afternoon. I feel it must have been good from what you quote, and how the Lord has left all these instances upon record, to show his faithfulness to his word. I can believe for others, but it is for myself where my faith fails. I feel how great is the sin of unbelief, to doubt his mercy or care in any way, body or soul. I would be different, but cannot deliver myself from the conflict with unbelief; but you know we cannot move our feet out of the appointed path, and I must walk in the trial and darkness all the appointed days, until the Lord’s own time come. All our times are in his hand, of darkness as well as light; and “there is this word of comfort: ‘The Lord trieth the righteous.’ It is not blessing, delivering, and favouring us manifestly that tries us, but the contrary. What a most blessed grace is hope! How useful in the dark. The apostle says, ‘We are saved by hope.’ I believe he means it mostly in an experimental sense, as against despair and unbelief. How we are able, even in our darkest times, to say, ‘I have hope.’ Yes; I can say so for myself. How different was my state when favoured in London. That has been one of my hills Mizar. I have been very thankful for this week.

“Yours very sincerely in our only hope, 

“R. H.”

Early in Dec., the medical men gave Mrs. Healy leave to come into the country, and spend two or three weeks with her husband and family for a little change. This proved to be a very kind and remarkable providence in thus bringing them to spend together his last week upon earth, which at that time was quite veiled to all but his Omniscient eye that it was so near. His illness, which had all along been regarded as an occasional derangement of the liver, had become more settled, and was attended with great weakness and loss of energy; so that he had placed himself under medical treatment, and could not possibly have fetched his wife into the country. One of her sisters undertook this office for him, and brought her, as had been agreed upon, to the house of her parents at O., where it was a mutual trial that he was too ill to meet her. He thus writes, by the hand of one of his sisters:

“Hooby, Dec. 10th, 1866. 

“My dear Friend, I desire gratefully to thank you for the letter that from time to time you have written, to me. They have not altogether failed in accomplishing your object, viz., administering a little comfort to my tried soul; but the Lord alone can do for me that which my soul is hungering and thirsting after. O, my friend, I have never been in such a furnace as this since that short and sharp one the Lord put me into in the year 1854. How low my soul sank last night, I cannot well tell you. It was as if there was nothing right about me; and O the tremblings of my soul. How I feared I should not be found right at the last! But I was enabled to groan unto God, and the dark cloud, in a measure, passed away. The words of Jeremiah, ‘My hope is perished from the Lord,’ seemed, as it were, to support my sinking soul. I felt a little freedom of spirit come over me, and I said, ‘Lord, have I not loved thee in times past? Hast thou not loved me? Then how can I but hope that I do yet belong to thee?’ I have a hope that my soul will not sink so low again in this furnace. O how thankful should I be now for one crumb of that bread of which I do trust that I have in times past fed, even to the full! During to-day I have had a calm hope resting upon God. Thank Mr. K. for me, for his kind and good letter. It came at the time when I was indeed tried sorely as to my sincerity; and when he said, ‘Dearly-beloved brother in the Lord,’ I felt, ‘O that I could say so too!’ It is a painful dispensation from the Lord, that I shaft not be able to meet my dear E. at O. on the day of her arrival, or for some tune afterwards. Quietly remaining here seems quite necessary in my case. The Lord doeth all things well. May he grant her needed support to bear the trial. It is, indeed, the part of worms of the dust to fall before him from whom we deserve nothing but eternal wrath. I know you will do your best to stay her up under the painful trial; but ‘power belongeth unto God.’ Tell her to remember the words the Lord spake unto her, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’

“Yours in the Lord, 

“R. H.”

On Dec. 19th he was enabled to leave Hooby, and go to his mother’s at A. for a few days, preparatory to coming to O., which, with a great effort, he was enabled to do on Lord’s day, 23rd. His mother says she never enjoyed being with him so much as on this visit, and on her last to him at H. There was such a sweet tenderness of spirit wrought. One day, thinking perhaps his earthly affairs might trouble him, she inquired. He said, “No! God places some in a higher, some in a lower sphere; yet he takes care of all. God divides to every man as he will. I have striven, and, I hope, lawfully. Now may I have submission to his blessed will, and take all to him in prayer.’ He used to beg of the Lord, if it was not his blessed will to restore his dear partner in life, to have mercy upon her, and grant she might not suffer greatly, and take her to himself; and restore his own poor body, if his gracious will. repeating parts of hymn 261, especially verse 3:

“It is the Lord who can sustain 

Beneath the heaviest load;

From whom assistance I obtain 

To tread the thorny road.”

He said, at two or three different times, “If the people of the world could have a clear view of eternity as it really is, its business could not possibly be carried on.”

Being permitted to reach 0. once more, he felt he could not be absent from the service of the Lord’s house. He was drawn up in a closed Bath chair that afternoon, and sat in the invalids’ vestry, into which the sound is conducted. Mr. K. spoke from 1 Pet. 5:6, 7. He said he felt some things which he heard suitable; but he was evidently very ill. A few of his friends, who went to speak to him afterwards, were much shocked at his wasted and altered appearance, demonstrating the words of Job, which he said had been suitable to his feelings: “He hath taken me by the neck, and shaken me to pieces.” Mr. Keal, seeing him so ill, telegraphed the next morning for a physician, from L., who took a more favourable view of his case, and thought he might, perhaps, get out again in a fortnight. To a friend, who called to see him that morning, he quoted, as he greeted her, Matt. 10:42, in a very feeling, tender, and broken manner, saying, “If I belong to the Lord, there is a cup of cold water to be put to your account, for your sympathy with me in my affliction;” and he named two others also, and said, “You shall in no wise lose your reward.” The mellowness, meekness, and childlikeness of his spirit was remarkable, and manifest to those who saw him that it had been wrought through deep affliction. He said to the same friend, “I have been so little used to illness, that I don’t know what to think of myself; but I don’t think this affliction is unto death.” He thrice repeated this within a few minutes, and inquiringly. Upon being answered that the Lord’s people often make great mistakes by judging of the Lord’s dispensations before the time, he accepted it, and said, “You have checked me upon that ground before now.”

On Wednesday, 26th, the same friend had a conversation with him. He was rather better in body, and in a sweet frame of mind. He said that for a week before he came to O., Isa. 50:10 had been the state of his soul, and that he felt he was walking in the spirit of it.

On Monday morning, 24th, he said, “I have had a sweet time in reading Rom. 8. I could go completely through that blessed chapter, in the sweet appropriation of precious faith, with a good conscience, testifying, in the light of the Spirit, that every word belonged to me. I wish I could tell it you just as I had it; but I am too weak. I should like to talk to you about many things. It is long since I have seen you to talk over matters.” On verse 5 he said, “I knew that I was after ‘the things of the Spirit,’ minding them, and searching all the ground I had gone over, and had been for weeks; for nothing short of his divine leadings could satisfy my mind now. I don’t have to complain of lightness now. I am brought to solemn dealing.” (He used to lament a proneness to such a spirit, and say he could not go to a market and through his ordinary transactions without bringing guilt upon his conscience through this thing, and would say how he dreaded the temptations of the way, especially those which might yet await him.) At verses 10, 11, he spoke some sweet and precious things. ‘The body is dead because of sin,’ &c. It is dead to everything but what is contrary to God’s honour and glory. I wish it were more dead; but it is virtually so, ‘by the body of Christ;’ but, by his resurrection, ‘the spirit is life, because of righteousness.’ Blessed be God, our bodies will not be dead in the resurrection. They will be raised up together with Christ, and be with him, and like him, and see him as he is. We shall meet those we have mourned. There will be no more curse; but blessing and praising God for ever and ever.” This was spoken with such holy fervour and reality that it conveyed the impression that, although it was wisely hidden from his own view, the Lord was preparing his soul for those eternal blessings which nearly awaited him, and arming him for the last conflict. He said,”I am not in the enjoyment of it now, as I received it; but it does not leave me. If any of our friends ask my state now, I have a sweet peace, ‘peace in believing.’ What can I have better than our Lord’s last gift to his disciples, before he was betrayed and bore the accursed death of the cross for our salvation?” He said, “How good it is of the Lord to have taken every anxious thought about the farm, &c., off my mind.”

On the 28th, he was not quite so well in body, and breathed oppressively. He said, “I feel dark as to the present state of my soul. Past experience is not enough in deep affliction.” He spoke of what a companionship in tribulation he had felt with the psalmist, and especially with Job, in some of his “dark places,” and named chaps, 10 and 23. When asked, “And could you not sometimes say with him, ‘Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit?’ he immediately brightened up, and said, with his usually animated countenance, “Bless his dear name, that I could; and also, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;’ or I must have sunk in despair.”

On the 29th he was rather better all day. He retired to rest, with the family, about the usual time; but at about 4 o’clock he dressed, and went into his wife’s room adjoining, to her fire, saying he could get no sleep, and was extremely cold. She called her father, and he, being rather alarmed at his state, sent for his son. Brandy was given, and remedies used; but it was evident that it was the cold chill of death, of which he seemed partially aware. He was very calm. He said, “If I die, I shall not perish. I have no joy, no fear. I have peace. I am going Into the presence of a sin-pardoning God.” His poor wife said, “Surely, your valuable life will be spared!” He said, “The Lord does nothing wrong.”

At about 20 minutes past 9 that same morning, Lord’s day, 30th, he calmly breathed his last, and entered into the joy of his Lord, in whose blessed presence he fully realises that 

“The joys prepared for suffering saints 

Have made amends for all.”

As the writer of this entered the chamber of death, 10 minutes after his spirit was “absent from the body and present with the Lord,” these words of the psalmist were sweet and supporting to her: “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.”

The loss is deeply lamented by the church and congregation. It will be long remembered, we trust, by the church that the last time he uttered his feeling petitions in our midst was at our church meeting, Oct. 28th, just preceding our afternoon service, which was closed by the ordinance of baptism being administered; and he could not have breathed forth a sweeter prayer for our union and prosperity, and the blessing of the Lord upon us, had he known that he was giving us his parting blessing.

The last time that he conducted our prayer-meeting in the congregation was in the month of August, just prior to taking his afflicted partner in life to London, and she was present also. He gave out, with much feeling, Hymn 319, also 277. At the last verse of the latter hymn his feelings refused him utterance, and he was compelled to sit down.

His remains were interred in the cemetery at O., by Mr. K., Jan. 3rd, 1867; and as many of the members of the church and congregation were present as the inclement weather would permit.

Oakham, Feb. 5th, 1867. 

A. F. P.